Just Another Cao, a Dynasty Warriors 3 Fic
by Cao Fodder
Summary: Who knew fuedal China could be this much fun? This humor Fic follows the (mis)adventures of Cao Fodder and the regular Three Kingdoms generals through their campaigns, beginning with The Battle at He Fei. If you like Dynasty Warriors 3, then read it!
1. The Battle at He Fei

_Disclaimer:  This fanfic is based on the KOEI video game Dynasty Warriors 3 and its expansion, Dynasty Warriors 3:  Xtreme Legends, a game that is based on _Romance of the Three Kingdoms_, a historical novel that covers the Three Kingdoms period of Chinese history.  Dynasty Warriors 3 and all Dynasty Warriors 3 elements, including its dialogue, are the property of KOEI, while invented characters such as Cao Fodder, the sword Mucao, and the actual content of this fanfic are the co-authors' property.  Other material is the property of its respective owner(s).  In no way may this piece of writing be used for any kind of commercial profit, nor may it be altered and republished by anyone other than the two co-authors._

This fanfic is the result of its two co-authors, aliases Cao Fodder and Wonko, playing KOEI's Dynasty Warriors 3 on hard mode (and with XL, very hard) entirely too much.  We had an absolute blast writing a fic about this particular battle, and we're going to try to write about more battles in the future.   The more you've played DW3, especially in two-player mode, the more humorous stuff in the fic you'll understand.  This chapter of the fic is essentially The Battle at He Fei gone horribly, horribly wrong, so if you're looking for historical accuracy, you're in the wrong place.  If you're looking for a hilarious read involving DW3's quirks and characters, you're in the right place.  So, without further ado, let's get this show on the road!

The Battle at He Fei

_"You're in good hands…you're in my hands."_

_---Gan Ning_

In a melee at the northeast corner of the battlefield…

            Cao Fodder's hilt smash sent Lu Xun's offending bodyguard flying into the wall, killing him.  He turned to face the enemy general.

            "Do you think you can evade my swords?" Lu Xun asked mockingly, raising his blades for a powerful slash.

            Cao Fodder raised his sword Mucao in an attempt to block it, but the twin blow sent him reeling.  He waited for death to come as the pair of swords thrust forward for him.  He shut his eyes tightly to block out the intense pain he was about to feel.

            Nothing happened.  In fact, he couldn't even hear the battle raging around him anymore.  He opened both of his eyes.

            He was standing in a large, square room with a floor, walls, and ceiling made of solid stone.  There was a large torch sitting on a stand in the middle of the room, and one in each corner of the room.  There were no doors or windows whatsoever.

            "Is this…the afterlife…?" Cao Fodder asked in the usual over-dramatized sort of voice commonly used by lamenting video game characters.

            "No, you silly general, it's the D-Plane," said a mocking male voice from behind.

            "Lord Cao Cao!" Cao Fodder returned in shock.  "I received a report that headquarters was under attack!  Are we both dead!?"

            "Oh _really_, I would have thought that my nephew's cousin would have more sense on the battlefield than this.  The attack on headquarters was merely a single unit of five soldiers trying to play hero by taking me out.  They failed horribly."

            "We aren't dead?"

            "No…We're in the D-Plane."

            "What do you mean?"

            "The D-Plane is where those afflicted with DGS or DTS end up from time to time."

            "I didn't understand a word of what you just said."

            "The D-Plane is the Disappearance Plane.  DGS and DTS stand for Disappearing General Syndrome and Disappearing Troop Syndrome, respectively.  Didn't your instructor teach you about all of these battlefield ailments?"

            "Lord Xu Zhu only taught me about how to get my troops charge the enemy lines _en masse_ and how to double my body mass in twenty days, Lord Cao Cao, sir."

            "Bah!  Xu Zhu!  He is a powerful warrior…yet a complete idiot.  He forgets the most fundamental bits of instruction.  All right, allow me to explain it to you."

            "Yes, sir."

            "In war, many strange things can happen, Cao Fodder.  You see, there are battlefield sicknesses…plagues, frostbitten troops in winter campaigns…and then there are the battlefield syndromes.  These things have no cure…they just happen from time to time.  Sometimes, when a very large number of troops from two opposing sides are crammed together in a tight space staring each other down, some troops or even generals themselves can experience this.  They fade out from the battlefield and appear in here.  In rare cases, a very large number of troops can occasionally DTS out along with their DGSing general and reappear at just the right moment to ambush a foe.  This is just a luck shot, though, so consciously harnessing these strange occurrences to our advantage is, thus far, impossible.  We do know, however, that it can indeed save a person's life."

            "It just saved mine."

            "Yes, I have been saved from grievous wounds by these happenings before."

            "Does anyone know what causes these things to happen?"

            "Not for certain, but Zhuge Liang of the kingdom of Shu did request enlightenment on the matter from Heaven itself at one point, or so he claims."

            "Did he get a reply!?"

            "Supposedly.  The answer is mysterious indeed, though.  The answer was, 'PS2 RAM is not enough to represent the motion of that many polygons.'  It is a rather cryptic response.  Even more peculiar, Zhuge Liang claims that the cause of DTS or DGS is linked to the cause of soldiers on the battlefield suddenly slowing down their rate of swinging, reducing combat and motion to less than half of its normal speed.  He also says this phenomenon is also responsible for the large amounts of fog that impair eyesight on a crowded battlefield.  Still, it is probably just an attempt to fool us."

            "This is strange indeed.  What do we do now that we are here?"

            "We wait until it is time for us to reappear."

            "How will we know that?"

            "Keep your eyes open and be alert.  Time here passes more slowly than normal, so you will return to the battlefield only seconds from when you disappeared.  This room should start to fade from your vision and you should be able to make out your surroundings on the battlefield before you reappear.  If there are foes nearby, you can even move around a bit before you fully reappear or prepare for a good swing with your blade.  Be warned, though.  Though you are not visible yet on the battlefield while you are in this transition, if a weapon passes through where you are reappearing at, then there is a good chance that it'll hit you.  Be alert, as I said."

            "What do we do until we start to reappear, though?"

            "Well…if you must know…"

            Cao Cao stepped over to the torch in the center of the room and knelt beside it, carefully moving the torch stand over toward one wall of the room.  The brick the torch was now resting upon depressed into the floor, and part of the rocky wall nearby lifted to reveal a passageway.

            "You'll see.  Come along."

            Cao Cao led him into the tunnel, which was actually a descending staircase.  There were about twenty small steps in the staircase, but the two descended it quickly.  The bottom of the tunnel opened into a very large room filled with circular tables surrounded by chairs and covered in bowls of meat buns and other delicious snacks.  In one corner of the room was an absolutely colossal stack of assorted wines.  Troops from the Wei army sat relaxing about the room, a table or two at a time vanishing back into reality on occasion.  Zhen Ji sat polishing her flute at one table, Cao Pi sitting next to her trying to convince her to just use a sword instead of a flute to kill her enemies.  She repeatedly refused him, saying that she didn't care if it couldn't play any good sounding notes anymore, and that it was a perfectly good bludgeon in a pinch, regardless of what he thought.  Their rant continued for a bit before Cao Pi popped out, followed only seconds later by his annoyed wife.

            "Make yourself at ho—" Cao Cao began to offer before fading from the scene.

            Cao Fodder walked over to an empty table, eyeing the basketful of meat buns on the table in great interest.  Not able to resist having a few extra rations, he reached out to pick one up, and was mildly disappointed when he realized that he could no longer hear the raucous sounds of the troops chatting, nor touch the bun.  The sights and sounds of the Wei-Wu battle at Hei Fei returned to him, and he noticed that Lu Xun had his back to him.

            The newest Wei general raised his sword Mucao in an attempt to lop off Lu Xun's head while he was blind to his presence.  As he lunged out to swing, though, a foot connected very sharply with his torso, sending him to the ground.

            A female general shouted at him mockingly, "Don't even try that!"

            Cao Fodder recognized Sun Shang Xiang at once by her fiery red hair and her humongous chakrams.  He tried to right himself, but she kept kicking away at him.

            "My brother shall praise me for defeating you!" she exclaimed happily.

            Cao Fodder continued to be beaten badly and smacked silly with SSX's chakrams.  By the time she decided to leave him alone (due to a unit of Wei archers raining arrows on her and her bodyguards) he was rather badly gashed and quite dazed from all that kicking.

            "I cannot let myself lose to them!" Cao Fodder muttered as he shambled off toward Wei headquarters for medical attention.

            Zhen Ji turned to Cao Pi after dazing Lu Xun with an awful note from her flute to rant about Cao Fodder.  "I told you dear, I told you!  There's no room for someone like him as a general in this army!  Even if he _is_ another of Cao Cao's relatives, he's an awfully distant one, and he certainly doesn't have any experience in the field or any sort of natural leadership ability.  He'll be dead before the battle's over."

            "Now, now, my dear," Cao Pi consoled.  Don't worry about Cao Fodder.  He will do well enough back here away from the front, I think.  Plus, and don't you forget this, he has _us_ to back him up.  Now quit worrying and resume with beating up that silly boy over there.  He's coming around, so get to it!"

            Zhen Ji swung her battered flute at the dazed dual wielder once more, and was annoyed when he vanished before the blow could strike.  She decided to rip through his forces while he was gone.

            Sun Shang Xiang and her bodyguards ran back down the hill from where the archers had been, triumphantly bringing along an extra quiver of arrows.  Lu Xun reappeared just as she ran by.

            "Sun Shang Xiang!"  Lu Xun called out to her.

            "Lu Xun?" she asked.  "What do you need?"

            "I need you to go to your brother in the village and help him out," he stated.  "I have a gut feeling that something terrible is about to happen, and I think that Lord Sun Quan will need all of the guards he can get."

            "I will guard him with my life, Lu Xun!" she confirmed before running off along a southbound road leading back to the village, leaving Lu Xun and his force alone with Zhen Ji and Cao Pi's troops.

Meanwhile in the southwestern corner of the battlefield…

Lu Meng and his bodyguards hid themselves in the nearby bushes and spied on Xiahou Dun and Cao Ren.  Getting rid of the Wei troops in this corner of the battlefield would be a simple task indeed if his plan worked correctly.  As Xiahou Dun's troops approached, they looked about for any signs of Wu forces in the area.  As they neared the hiding place of Lu Meng and company, one of Lu Meng's bodyguards disguised in Wei armor jumped out of the bushes.

            "I-I…It's…I-I…It's… LU MENG!" he shouted in his best impersonation of one of Yuan Shu's troops from many years prior at Hu Lao Gate.

            Lu Meng charged out of the forest on a brown warhorse and swung his spear at the Wei-disguised bodyguard, taking care to only hit him with the shaft of the spear.  "Ha!  Get out of my way!" he shouted as he charged forward.

            Xiahou Dun and Cao Ren's forces turned and fled in terror, running north as fast as they possibly could.

            Lu Meng stopped and dismounted.  He and his bodyguards watched the fleeing Wei troops for about twenty seconds before falling to the ground laughing.

            "Suckers!" the bodyguard yelled as he laughed riotously.  "I said Lu Meng, you Wei fools, not Lu Bu!"

            "Hmm, that went well," Lu Meng decided.  "Okay, let's wrap things up down here and get most of our troops back up in the village.  I would like you to stay down here with your troops, Dong Xi.  The rest of us, we'd better get moving.

At Wei HQ in the northwest…

            "Good, good.  Is Zhang Liao prepared?" Cao Cao asked the messenger who was standing alongside his horse.

            "Yes, Lord Cao Cao," the messenger confirmed.  "He is preparing to lure Taishi Ci as we speak."

            "Very good.  How is young Cao Fodder faring on his first battlefield?"

            "Not well at all, sir.  He was caught by a pair of Wu generals and was badly hurt.  It's a miracle he wasn't killed."

            "Did you take him to the aid station yet?"

            "No, he said that he wanted to see you before he died.  I assumed his wounds were too much for the aid station to help from the way he was talking."

            "Bah, he won't die.  I'll go to him and show him to the aid station.  Where is he now?"

            "Bandaged up in his tent, Lord."

            "All right, get back to your post.  I will go see him momentarily."

            The messenger turned to leave.

            "Wait a moment, I need you to send a message to Cao Pi's unit," Cao Cao said to halt him.  "Tell Cao Pi and Zhen Ji that I would like them to entertain Lu Xun's troops for only a short while longer.  Tell them to pull their troops back to our HQ whenever an opening for them to do so emerges.  We will reform at our base camp, press southward and sneak around the Wu army's main force.  Then we will have the option to either go for their base camp or attack them from behind, a win-win situation."

            "Yes, sir."

Shortly afterwards in the central village…

            "I've got you now, Taishi Ci!" Zhang Liao shouted in an intimidating manner as he shot an arrow straight for the proudly mounted Wu general's heart.  The arrow did not strike, however, as Taishi Ci and his horse experienced a spurt of DGS.

            Zhang Liao took off his little hat thingy and threw it into the dust of the village square.  "I _had_ him that time," he whined as the arrow whizzed off into the distance and killed some unlucky Wu private who was staring down a Wei private, both of them strafing around opposite sides of an imaginary circle.

            The Wei general wasted no time in preparing for Taishi Ci's return to reality.  His personal force of archers positioned themselves on the edges of the thatched roofs of the houses surrounding the spot where Taishi Ci and his mount had disappeared.  When he and his horse returned, arrows would mow down the rider quite quickly.

            It did not take long.  Less than ten seconds later the Wu general popped back in, mount and annoying bonk sticks in tow.  He looked around himself and saw the ambush.

            Zhang Liao cleared his throat for take two.  "I've got you now, Taishi Ci!"

            Taishi Ci said nothing, looking for a crowd of troops to attempt to vanish into.  There was a large crowd over by the hill leading up to the bridge leading out of town, and he wasn't sure if he could make it.

            Arrow after arrow pelted Taishi Ci and Zhang Liao sidestepped Taishi Ci's charger just in time to avoid being trampled.  The wounded and dying Taishi Ci rode forward with a moan.

            "Wait!  Ah!  He's hurt," Zhang Liao told his troops, stating the obvious.  "There's no need to pursue"

            "I still have so far to go…not yet…" Taishi Ci sighed before collapsing in death.

Immediately afterwards at Sun Quan's position near the assassination…

            "Taishi Ci!"  Sun Quan shouted from behind his large force of archers and other troops.  "I will avenge your death!"

            At this point, he turned his beautiful white horse around and rode as fast as possible for a broken bridge leading to his base camp, distancing himself as far from avenging Taishi Ci as possible.  This was not a smart tactical move on his part, as there was a perfectly good and completely intact bridge not far away.  Instead of moving to the intact bridge, he sat mounted on his pretty white horse at the broken one for a very long length of time while Sun Shang Xiang ran down to him.  When she got there, him being at the broken bridge gave her a good excuse to come up on her own horse and show Sun Quan how to jump with a mount (She stole the horse from some other defeated general along the way.)  On the other side of the broken bridge, SSX dismounted and followed her brother to his new position inside the main Wu encampment.

            "Now, my brother, stay here while my troops and I secure the area outside of our encampment," SSX requested.

            "Of course.  I will wait until Gan Ning's ambush party has struck before I make any serious counterstrikes."

            SSX nodded and turned to exit the Wu base camp.

            "Quick, she's not looking," Sun Quan whispered to his bodyguards.  "Let's move to the easternmost part of the base to confuse her when she returns!"

In Cao Fodder's tent…

            "Cao Fodder?" Cao Cao asked as he entered the wounded officer's tent.

            "Oh, Lord Cao Cao…I am glad that you came to see me," Cao Fodder said, shivering.

            "Look, you.  Stand up right this instant and follow me," Cao Cao ordered.

            "Wha—what?"

            "Stand up and follow me to the aid station."

            "Surely you don't want me to walk in my condition?"

            "They're just flesh wounds, now stand yourself up before I do something unkind."

            Cao Fodder staggered to his feet, wincing in pain.

            "See, you can stand.  Now, follow me.  I'll hold your sword for you if you don't want to carry it."

            "My…sword?"

            "I'm not going to stab you with it or anything, now come along."

            Cao Cao led Cao Fodder to the northernmost end of the Wei encampment.  Just to the right side of the eastern of the camp's two gateways was a small patch of grass along a drop-off cliff.  The only anomaly in all of this was a large, gray pot that was sitting upright on the grass.  The gateway fence lay behind the pot.

            "Here we are," Cao Cao said cheerfully.

            "Where are we?" Cao Fodder questioned.

            "The aid station, of course."

            "Aid station?  All I see is a pot and one of our battlefield gateways."

            "Look in the pot."

            Cao Fodder took a peek at the pot's contents.

            "There are two meat buns in there…Is this some sort of joke?"

            "Not at all.  The meat buns are here for emergencies like yours."

            "But I'm not starving, I'm wounded!"

            "Never you mind, just break the pot open and eat the meat buns," Cao Cao ordered as he unsheathed the sword Mucao and held it out for Cao Fodder to take.

            "But if I break the pot, then not only do I waste a perfectly good pot, but I risk damaging the meat buns or getting them dirty!"

            "No 'buts' if you please.  Now, take the sword and do as I say."

            Cao Fodder sighed as he took the hilt of his sword and swung with what little force he could muster at the pot.

            He missed.

            He waited a moment.

            He swung again.

            He missed.

            "No, no!" Cao Cao said irritably.  "Swing twice _quickly_."

            Cao Fodder swung.

            He missed.

            He swung again.

            The jar cracked open with a clank, revealing a pair of meat buns that looked rather odd.  They were hovering and spinning laterally in midair, surrounded by glowing pulses and strands of light.

            "Wh—what sorcery is this?" Cao Fodder asked as he eyed the meat buns suspiciously.

            "It's not sorcery, just cooking gone awry.  You see, the meat buns used as rations by all three of the kingdoms are not made from a definite recipe.  An army cook who makes meat bun rations uses various different formulas of ingredients in an attempt to cook one of _these_.  Though the same recipe never produces one of these special meat buns twice in a row, haphazard cooking _can_ lead to the making of meat buns that have strange properties.  Adding random spices to meat buns can produce some weird stuff, as you can see."

            "Is it safe to eat them?"

            "Very much so, safer than you could hope."

            Cao Fodder gulped down the two meat buns and felt very strange.  At first he couldn't quite place how, but then he noticed that his wounds didn't hurt so much anymore.  Cao Cao removed the bandages, and was pleased to see that the new general only had a few small scrapes that were already scabbed over.

            "There, you see?" Cao Cao asked Cao Fodder.

            "They heal wounds?" Cao Fodder asked in return.

            "Yes, very quickly at that."

            "I still don't fully understand these meat buns…why are they in pots?"

            "They are stored in pots because they are only activated as healing meat buns if they are inside a pot of _exactly_ the size and shape of the one you broke, and only if the pot is forcefully shattered.  Otherwise, they're just normal meat buns.  Of course, if you break it open you can carry it around for a bit before you eat it; that's what some higher-ranking troops do.  Once it's activated, though, a healing meat bun starts to fade out of existence.  It'll eventually disappear if you don't eat it."

            "Where do they go?"

            "The D-Plane, except they lose their healing properties."

            "This military business is much more odd than I had originally thought it would be.  Thank you for the tutelage, Lord Cao Cao."

            "Anytime.  Oh, by the way, you might try breaking open pots in other locations than near gates.  Sometimes villagers and the like keep such pots near their houses.

Somewhere amidst the panicked mob of Xiahou Dun and Cao Ren's forces…

            "HALT, HALT, _HALT_!" Xiahou Dun commanded as loudly as he could manage.

            Every troop nearby stopped and looked his way.

            "But Lu Bu is here!" shouted one major.

            "I thought he was dead," added a sergeant.

            "He _is_, you imbeciles!" Cao Ren exclaimed.

            "Yes, that was _Lu Meng_ of the _Wu_ army trying to _trick us into retreating_!" explained Xiahou Dun.  "We were duped!"

            A raucous murmuring bellowed out from the crowd of soldiers.

            "Listen!" Cao Ren ordered.  "We will return to our headquarters.  We will let Lu Meng _think_ that he has defeated us with his pathetic ruse just long enough for us to get reinforced and crush him!"

            "Forward!" Xiahou Dun ordered as he pointed his scimitar up the trail towards Wei HQ."

Over in Sun Quan's Wu encampment…

            "If Wei has Zhang Liao, Wu has Gan Ning!" Sun Quan shouted dramatically from the depths of his archer-ridden camp.  Sun Quan stood there smugly for a while; waiting for someone from across the battlefield to inform that Gan Ning's ambush party had appeared.  A few minutes passed, but no Gan Ning.  Suddenly, lots of painful screams echoed through the camp.

            "Where is Sun Quan?" Zhang Liao bellowed as he rampaged through the Wu encampment on horseback.

            "It's Zhang Liao, Zhang Liao is here!" some private in the camp shouted before being cut down by Zhang Liao's polearm.

            "Zhang Liao is here!  EVERYBODY RUN!" shouted one of Sun Quan's archer minions.  Sun Shang Xiang ran up to Sun Quan, tired and out of breath.

            "There you are, you little…" she growled, then regained her composure.  "I mean, Lord Sun Quan, stay here!  I shall defeat Zhang Liao and save you, but first…"

            She grabbed Sun Quan, drug him off of his horse, and led him southwestward, deeper into the base.  Just to the north of the Wu encampment's southwestern gateway, she stopped.  A mischievous grin appeared on SSX's face.  Sun Quan gave her a puzzled look.  At blinding ninja speed, she tied her brother firmly to a nearby tree with a rope she kept on her for emergencies.

            "There, now you shouldn't get lost again and start wandering around like last time," she said darkly.

            "But…wha?  Hey!  You can't _leave_ me here!" Sun Quan yelled as he struggled to get free while she took his sword and laid it on the ground several feet in front of him.

            "That'sreallytoobadI'mreallysorrygottagobye," SSX replied as she ran out into the fog of war to fight Zhang Liao.

            "At least I'm in good hands.  I mean Sun Shang Xiang and my bazillion archers could surely take one man and a few petty Wei troops."  Sun Quan continued to take pride in his archers and sister for a few minutes until he heard SSX scream.

            "He's gonna kill meeeeee!" she shrieked as she ran by at Red Hare speed.

            "At least my loyal archers wouldn't flee shamelessly and leave me hopelessly tied to this miserable tree."

            At that exact moment a large mob of archers zoomed by Sun Quan in a panicked retreat, following in the direction Sun Shang Xiang had gone.  A few steps behind them came Zhang Liao.  He didn't notice Sun Quan at the time, but the Wu supreme commander suddenly found himself wishing that he were a little greener and a lot less red.

            "Gan Ning…" Sun Quan said nervously, sweat forming on his forehead, "…where are you…?"

Back at the Wei camp…

            A messenger approached Cao Cao.

            "Lord Cao Cao!" the messenger called out.  "We have received word that Zhang Liao has begun his raid on Wu HQ."

            "Zhang Liao, well done!  Crush Wu for me!" Cao Cao said powerfully.

            "Also, Cao Pi and Zhen Ji are regrouped and ready for the march southward.  Xiahou Dun and the rest of the southwestern unit are also ready for their vengeance on Lu Meng.  Cao Zhang has also pulled most of his troops out of the central village and has rejoined us."

            "Very good."

            Another messenger came running forward.

            "My Lord!  We have received word that Gan Ning's force failed to arrive," the scout reported.  "The Wu forces are in a panic."

            "Hmmm…wonderful!  Everyone!" Cao Cao said triumphantly as he turned to face his personal force in the Wei encampment.  "Now we shall begin our full-scale assault!  We shall make a quick march to the south to obliterate that fool Lu Meng, then we shall wind our way around to the village and cross the bridge to Wu HQ!"  A large cheer went up from the camp and they raised their weapons into air as they marched out to the south.

Meanwhile, in the village…

            Lu Xun, currently in the central village and with no word from Sun Quan's unit, made a brave decision.  "Sun Quan must be charging the Wei base camp with his troops alone!" he assumed boldly.  "Lu Meng, you go back to the southwestern corner of the area and attract the attention of any minor troops that try to escape our great and powerful leader's wake!  The rest of you, head to the northeastern part of the area and follow the trail west from there.  We will enter their base from the east and rout them!"

            Every Wu troop in the village got to work on this plan immediately.

Near the northwest road out of the village…

            Zhou Tai and his troops were already near the northwest road, so he decided that his troops would head to the southern end of the Wei base and divert the enemy's attention from Lu Xun's march from the east.  Gan Ning would have ideally been the one doing this, but since he had not shown up Zhou Tai decided to take his spot.  If Lu Xun's assumptions were correct, Sun Quan would be in the vicinity as well.

            As Zhou Tai approached the ditch where Gan Ning's ambush party should have been, he heard a loud snoring sound.  He looked down in the ditch, and was infinitely annoyed with what he saw.  Lo and behold, Gan Ning and his elite raiding party were in the ditch all right, every one of them sleeping soundly.  Zhou Tai slipped down into the ditch and kicked Gan Ning in the shoulder to wake him.

            "_What_ do you think you're doing!?" Zhou Tai demanded.

            "Waiting for the time to ambush the Wei army," Gan Ning replied sleepily.

            "That…" Zhou Tai said quietly and calmly before becoming loud and angry, "…was _supposed_ to have happened an HOUR AGO!!"

            "WHAT!?" Gan Ning yelled as he leapt to his feet.  "Everyone… EVERYONE… EVERYONE!!  _Now_ is the _time_ to _strike_!!"

            The soldiers grabbed their weapons and clambered out of the ditch.  Zhou Tai, exasperated, joined the ranks and followed them.  Gan Ning jumped out of the ditch, pointed his sword into the enemy base while looking down at his troops.

            "Attack!" Gan Ning ordered.  His troops ran out of the ditch, eyes closed but weapons drawn, except for Zhou Tai who followed slowly behind.  As he emerged from the ditch, he noticed a definite lack of something in the immediate area.

            "The Wei army…" Zhou Tai began.

            "They aren't here anymore, sir!" finished a major from Zhou Tai's force who had gone on ahead into the camp before Gan Ning ordered the attack."

            Gan Ning's soldiers tossed in their opinions:

            "Yeah, I thought it looked kind of empty."

            "They must have fled in terror!"

            "We scared them to death!"

            "YEAH!"

            "Quick, everybody, back in the ditch!" Gan Ning ordered.  "We shall celebrate by creating a large fire to roast wienies and make s'mores!"

            Everyone in the vicinity, including Zhou Tai's troops but excluding their general, immediately began to prepare for the coming wienie roast.

            Zhou Tai poked Gan Ning in the shoulder.

            "What do you want now?" Gan Ning asked irritably.

            "I _really _think we should seek out and destroy Cao Cao while we have the chance."

            "We've won." Gan Ning said through gritted teeth as he pulled Zhou Tai toward a large stack of wood that was being prepared for lighting.  "Let us roast wienies and make s'mores."

            Zhou Tai tried a different approach.  "_Wienies_…_s'mores_?  What are these strange foods you speak of?  We have meat buns for rations, there is no time or funding for extravagances!"

            "They're imported and they're quite good," Gan Ning said, ignoring Zhou Tai's protests.  "I got them from a friend of mine in the village.  His name is Zhou Zhou, and he runs Zhou Zhou's Wienie Shack.  He gave 'em to me for free, to show his support for Wu in the war effort."

            "Hmm…I don't know anyone by that name…I wonder if he is a relative of mine?" Zhou Tai asked thoughtfully.

            "I don't know, but come on down and party with us!" Gan Ning entreated Zhou Tai.  "I'll take you to meet him when we go into the village again sometime."

At this point in the southwest corner…

            Lu Meng and his faithful officers stood at the entrance to the trail leading northward to Wei HQ.  They felt rather sure that they could stop any effort by the Wei army at retaking this area, and were almost glad when they saw a few Wei troops coming down the trail.

            "Get them!" Lu Meng ordered to his troops.

            Lu Meng noticed something quite fat coming down the trail.  He came to the sudden realization that Xu Zhu was here.

            "I eat guys like you for breakfast!" the general of Wei said cheerfully.

            No one spoke or moved for three seconds.

"That's disgusting!" one of Lu Meng's bodyguards replied.

            "Your guy-like-me-eating days are over, Xu Zhu," Lu Meng said triumphantly.  "You're fini…fini…fi…"

Lu Meng's jaw dropped suddenly.  The earthquake-like sound of the entire Wei army that was present at He Fei marching down the trail towards Lu Meng's force caused only one command to come to his mind.

"RETREAT!!" Lu Meng ordered in a panic as Cao Cao's main force poured down the trail to the southwest corner.  The beleaguered Wu general screamed like a little girl and ran out the western gate into the fog of war, followed by his officers and troops.

"Well…that was easy," Cao Cao said as he scratched his beard.  After a brief pause to just stand there in appalled silence at Lu Meng's speedy retreat, the Wei army continued on their full-scale assault.

Back at Sun Quan's tree in Wu HQ…

            "Help me…anybody…please?" Sun Quan begged, hopelessly bound to his tree.  He heard the faint sound of footsteps coming.  Looking in the direction of the sound, he saw his sister running toward him.

            "It's about time!" he said to her.

            SSX continued running along and only stopped for a moment to look at him and say, "Fifty defeated," before charging right on past him.

            "Impressive!  Now untie me right now!"

            Sun Shang Xiang looked over her shoulder.  "Can'tgottarunbye," she said quickly as she sped away.  The mob of archers had apparently been obliterated because next in the parade was Zhang Liao, still dutifully chasing her.

            "Just you wait, I'll get you yet!" Zhang Liao shouted as he ran by, and once again didn't notice Sun Quan tied helplessly to the tree.

            "I hate my life…" Sun Quan muttered to himself.

At Cao Cao's assault force's current position…

            "Lord Cao Cao!  Reinforcements have arrived!" someone shouted from the back lines.

            "Excellent, we shall hold here until they join us, then we shall crush Wu!" Cao Cao informed his troops.

At the same time at the empty Wei encampment…

            "Cao Cao _did_ give us orders to come in at the main encampment, didn't he?" one of the reinforcement majors asked.

            "I smell smoke…" another commented.

            They made their way south out of the encampment, following the smoky yet appealing smell.

            "Look!  Fire in the ditch!" a private called out.  The reinforcements all ran over to the ditch, only to see a large group of Wu soldiers merrily roasting wienies and making s'mores.

            "Oooooooooh…wienies!" the reinforcements cheered in unison.  They all discarded their weapons and the easily removable parts of their armor before nonchalantly slipping down into the ditch and joining the Wu soldiers in their wienie roast; the Wu troops didn't seem to mind.

On the northern trail west of the northeast corner…

            "Forward, men!" Lu Xun shouted triumphantly from the back of his charger, raising his right-hand sword into the air.  "We will take Wei HQ in one charge!"

            The bulk of the Wu army that was present at He Fei was now on the march westward toward the Wei encampment.  They came expecting a dreadful battle, expecting a horrible fight, and expecting to have their combat prowess put to the test.  The one thing that they did not expect was what they found when they got in sight of the Wei encampment: a deserted Wei HQ.

            "Something is amiss here…" Lu Xun pondered aloud.  "Cao Cao and his forces were camped here only this morning…and it's unlikely that they retreated after the battle was going so well for them."

            Lu Xun paused and turned to his troops.  "This could be a trap; it might be a trick to throw us off.  We must remain cautious.  Advance into the Wei encampment and occupy it carefully while I try to get word from Lord Sun Quan on what to do now."

Half an hour after the reinforcements' arrival at Cao Cao's position…

            "Where are my reinforcements?" Cao Cao demanded as he slammed his right fist onto his right thigh in irritation.  "You there!" he yelled as he pointed at a group of five people.  "Head north and see where my reinforcements have gone!  Find them and tell them to march toward Wu HQ in the southeast with all possible speed!  I can delay this attack no longer…"

            The unit nodded and then simultaneously tried to force themselves into the exact same spot on the battlefield.  They all experienced a spurt of DTS, and Cao Cao sighed loudly.  A few moments later, they reappeared.

            "Lord Cao Cao!" the major leading the five addressed.

            "Yes…?" Cao Cao returned impatiently.

            "One of the reinforcements met me in the D-Plane and informed me of the situation.  The reinforcements have indeed arrived…but…it appears as though they've joined the Wu army for some sort of…wienie roast."

            Cao Cao stroked his beard in deep thought.  "So…they've joined," he said.

            In one swift motion, Cao Cao pulled out a parchment and jotted something down before reading it quietly to himself.  He read, "Note to self:  get wienies to raise morale."  He then turned to his army.  "We shall continue our march over to the village and cross the bridge into Wu HQ.  Let us go!"

At Gan Ning's wienie roast…

            "Gan Ning!  Gan Ning!  Terrible news!" a Wu major yelled as he ran toward Gan Ning's seat by the main fire (Several smaller ones had been lit in the ditch by now as well to accommodate for the increasing number of wienie-roasters.).

            "What is it?" Gan Ning asked in a muffled voice, still munching on a slightly blackened wienie and a s'more at the same time.

            "We're—you'd better sit down for this, sir—"

            "I _am_ sitting down.  Tell me!"

            "We're…well…we're out of wienies!!"

            Gan Ning's jaw dropped and he let the wienie and s'more fall to the ground, his eyes wide with shock.

            "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!" he screamed in agony, creating a rather disturbing echo.

A few minutes later, back with Wei…

            Cao Cao Looked around with a puzzled expression on his face.  "Did…you just hear something strange?" he asked Cao Ren.

            "No, Lord…" Cao Ren replied, though listening attentively for any odd sounds.

            A few seconds later, a group of several blinding rings of light pulsated out from the center of the town, as if something had just been forcefully shoved into the space-time continuum.  Cao Cao and his army raised their arms to shield their eyes from the light.  When the light faded, Cao Cao lowered his arms and looked toward the village.

            "What was _that_?" he asked.

            "It appears to be a supply team," Xiahou Dun reported.  "A supply unit has appeared by the wienie store in the center of the village, and it is heading northwest at a remarkable pace.  They must be carrying vital supplies for the Wu wienie roast!"

            "The wienie store…" Cao Cao restated.  "Yes, yes…that supply team must be bringing supplies for Gan Ning.  Quickly!  Someone send a message to Xu Huang in the northwestern path.  Tell him to stop the supply captain and confiscate his wienies for our own use.  That should demoralize Gan Ning and give our defective reinforcements a good cause to attack him!"

            "Such a good plan…" Cao Zhang commented, "…Yet something has to go wrong.  It always does.

            The person delivering the note to Xu Huang ran back up the trail toward Wei HQ, DTSing after only three steps.

            Cao Zhang and Cao Cao both sighed.

            "Lord Cao Cao!" Xu Zhu hailed.

            "What do you want?" Cao Cao asked, not in the mood for Xu Zhu's idiocy.

            "I will go and burn down the wienie shack for you!  That way, the Wu army will not be able to order up any more wienies!"

            "Hmmm.  I had planned to confiscate the wienies for our use, but perhaps this way is best.  See to it that the wienie shack is destroyed."

            "I'll get right on it, Lord Cao Cao!"

At Xu Huang's position on the upper northwest path…

            Xu Huang stood still; leaning on his axe, his horse beside him, reflecting on the awful experiences he'd been subjected to in this battle.  All of his troops, bodyguards included, were dead.  He had been ordered to hold this position by Lord Cao Cao himself, but his troops hadn't been able to handle it.  With no troops to support him, he was apparently no longer seen as a threat by the Wu forces and had been ignored as such.

            First, a unit of five Wu soldiers had run past him.

            "Come, won't you cross swords with me?" he had asked, but the four sergeants and major had simply marched on by, bound for Cao Cao's position in the Wei HQ.

            Then, that miserable Han Dang had come by.

            "Come, won't you cross swords with me?" he had asked once again, but Han Dang had also completely ignored him and trotted on past him.

            Last, and even more insulting, Sun Shang Xiang had come running along.

            "Come, won't you cross swords with me?" he had asked yet again.

            She had paused for a moment, looked back over her shoulder, and then continued running past with Zhang Liao in hot pursuit.  As she ran off she had answered hurriedly, "There'sreallynotimegottagobye."

            As he thought about these things, he decided that no one else would get by him.  He heard footsteps behind him, but he did not turn around.  As soon as the footsteps got close, he swung his axe behind him, one-handing it with his right hand.

            While executing this thrusting axe swing, he pivoted to face his target and began to ask, "Come, won't you cross swords with—"

            He stopped abruptly when he noticed that he had just killed a Wei private carrying a sheaf of parchment.  The parchment was soaked in blood, and he could only make out two words on it.

            "Stop…wienies?" Xu Huang read unknowingly.  He stood there, puzzled, for several seconds.  As he pondered the meaning of the message, he got a whiff of the smoke from Gan Ning's wienie roast.

            "Wu soldiers! Aha!" he said knowingly and gleefully.  "I've got you now!"

            He mounted up and charged off down the path alone.  He would find the source of the smoke and eliminate the Wu mini-camp single-handedly or die trying.  As he reached the central village, however, something more interesting caught his eye.

            "A supply team!  They must be carrying some absurdly powerful weapon or a special item!  I will head them off and confiscate it."

            Charging at full gallop to the west, he dismounted and stood stock-still on the bridge connecting the central village and the northwest road.  The supply team would _not_ escape him.

            As the supply captain got closer, Xu Huang noticed that the box he was carrying bore the logo of Zhou Zhou's Wienie Shack, a restaurant in the village.  He smiled with glee as he ran off down the hill to meet the supply captain and pilfer the wienies.

            "I've got you now, wienie bringer!" he shouted at the supply captain who, upon seeing Xu Huang, began to run considerably faster.

            "Hahahahahaha!" Xu Huang laughed triumphantly.

            Smoke rising from the center of the village suddenly stole his attention from the supply captain.  Zhou Zhou's was on fire!

At Zhou Zhou's Wienie Shack…

            Xu Zhu sat happily roasting the weenies he had taken from the shack before he set it ablaze.

            "It sure was good that I could convince Cao Cao to let me destroy the wienie shack, cause now I got lotsa free wienies, right Zhou Zhou?" he asked Zhou Zhou, who was tied up and gagged in the street.

            "Mrphmrhpr!" Zhou Zhou cried out in an attempt to scream for help.

Just past the bridge leading to Wu HQ…

            "Hmmm… this is quite strange," Cao Cao said meditatively.

            "We have met no resistance whatsoever," Cao Zhang said, stating the obvious as generals so often did.

            "I keep thinking that this is a trap…and yet…it almost seems like the Wu army retreated.  We need to investigate further.  Onward, men!"

At Gan Ning's Camp…

            A Wu sergeant taking a leisurely walk back from making the order for more wienies had been rather surprised by the sudden burst into flames of Zhou Zhou's Wienie Shack, but he knew that a flaming wienie shack could only mean…

            "FREE WIENIES AT ZHOU ZHOU'S!" he shouted at the top of his lungs as he arrived at the ditch party.

            Gan Ning's entire camp burst into frenzied yelling and they all charged down the path and across the bridge to where the hapless Xu Huang was now chasing the supply captain.  The supply captain spotted the rapidly approaching wienie-crazed mass of troops.  A look of total relief came over the captain's face as he saw this window of wienie opportunity.  Running toward Gan Ning's force of partygoers, he thrust the case of wienies into Gan Ning's hands and turned to run in stride with the troops.  The result was Xu Huang getting knocked around by a large number of charging Wu soldiers.

            As the Wu forces and Wei deserters charged off toward the burning shack, Xu Huang remained on the hill watching lots of pretty stars dance around his head as he challenged dazedly, "Come, won't you cross swords with me?"

            Upon righting his balance, Xu Huang realized that the wienie eaters had already escaped.  At this realization, he began to shiver furiously and swing his axe repeatedly into the ground.

At Sun Quan's tree…

            "You have no idea how long I've been waiting to say this, Sun Archers—err, Sun Quan!" Cao Cao said, relishing his victory as his picked up Sun Quan's own sword and pointed it at him.

            There was a moment of silence.

            "Well, get on with it…" Sun Quan stated fearlessly, though inwardly hoping that something good would happen to him for a change.

            Cao Cao glared at Sun Quan and said in a monotone, "All your base are belong to us.  You are on the way to destruction."

            Cao Cao flicked the point of the sword up a bit and drew it a bit closer to the helplessly bound Sun Quan.

            "What you say?" Sun Quan asked, confused.

            "You have no chance to survive, make your time."

            At this point all of the nearby Wei forces laughed in unison, "Ha ha ha!"

            The Wei forces in the area began loudly singing the lyrics to "Invasion of the Gabber Robots" while Cao Cao and his bodyguards clanked their weapons together in time with the rhythm.

            "What mockery is this!?" Sun Quan demanded, but he got no response other than the Wei army's continuous singing.

At the burning mass that was once Zhou Zhou's Wienie Shack…

            "Gan Ning!  Gan Ning!" a messenger shouted frantically, a half-eaten wienie-on-a-stick in hand.  "Lord Sun Quan is in danger!"

            Gan Ning stood up immediately, spitting out a half-eaten s'more.

            "What!?" Gan Ning returned in disbelief.

            "Sun Quan…he has been captured by the Wei army…"

            "HOW!?  They retreated!"

            "They…they…they got to our HQ somehow, sir."

            "I'll save him myself.  There's no time to delay.  Tell the others to follow me as quickly as they can; I have to _book_!"

            Gan Ning grabbed a fresh s'more and twisted a pair of wienies into a semicircle that he then placed on top of it.  He then began to munch on this Imperial Seal of Wienies, holding it in his left hand while he outstretched his sword in the other.  He impaled a few more wienies on the tip of his sword, and then he set off at a rapid run.  His ten seconds of Musou goodness sped him south across the southern bridge leading into the Wu encampment and got him relatively close to the Wei forces before the effects of the Seal ran out.  He quickly bit a wienie off of his sword and continued his mad dash.  As he neared Cao Cao's troop, he heard the Wei army singing.

"No, all our base are _not_ belong to you," Gan Ning said quietly.  He picked up with the song as he sang, "For great justice, take off every zig!"

There were several loud and painful death cries as Gan Ning ripped through the Wei lines with his sword.  He had removed the wienies from the tip, now holding them in his left hand and munching on one occasionally.

"Move zig, move zig, move zig, move zig.  You know what you doing, take off every zig!" he chanted as more Wei soldiers were cleaved apart.  "Move zig, move zig, move zig, move zig.  For great justice, take off every zig."

The massacre continued until finally the song came to an end.

"Moooooove ziiiiiiiiiig…" Gan Ning panted as he ran out of breath and wienies.  Just after the end of the word 'zig,' he slashed the ropes binding Sun Quan and then fell to the ground with a thud.

"I'm FREE!" Sun Quan shouted before running very quickly to the south, deep into the Wu base camp.

"Wha—STOP HIM!!" Cao Cao stammered.

The Wei troops snapped out of their All Your Base trance moments later and suddenly realized that the Wu supreme commander had eluded them.

"STOP HIM!!" shouted a major.

The Wei army thundered southward.

"Hmm…what is this?" Cao Cao asked rhetorically as he stepped toward the tree."

Sun Quan's green piece of headwear was stuck hanging on a tree branch.  It had gotten snagged off of his head during his flight.

"Ah!  It is Sun Quan's hat thingy!  Even if the Wu army eludes me today, I will _still_ have a war trophy to wave at them!"

In the deepest part of the Wu encampment…

            As Sun Quan fled toward Lu Su's force and the protection it offered, a group of troops caught his eye.  A dozen or so of Lu Su's men were strafing in a tight circle around a single Wei private, a private who was occasionally batting his sword at them but not really accomplishing anything.

            This situation called for the kind of heroic nature that only the best of generals could possess.  Sun Quan valiantly charged into the crowd and slew the single Wei private.

            A major in the crowd thanked him by saying, "He was a tough one.  We'll be returning to our posts now."

            "Cao Cao's army is advancing on our position, you must engage him!"

            "But Lu Su said for us to do nothing useful and hold our position throughout the battle until the time came for our full-scale assault!"

            "No 'buts!'  Spread the word that I've given the order for a full-scale attack on the Wei army and get together what forces we still have in our camp.  Hit them with everything we've got!"

            "Yes, my lord!"

In the southwest corner of the battlefield…

            "Okay…you win…I…can't even…walk…another…step…" Zhang Liao panted.

            "Me…either…" Sun Shang Xiang returned.  "Why don't we…call it…a draw?"

            "Okay, that sounds…pretty good…I think…okay, I'm going…to rejoin…Lord Cao Cao…now…okay?"

            "Fine…I'll…keep…you company…on the way back."

            "Okay…let's…get moving…then."

            The two hobbled off at a snail's pace toward Wu HQ, exhausted from their marathon chase.

In the Wu-occupied Wei encampment…

            Lu Xun was thoroughly perplexed by the serious lack of Wei in the camp.  A messenger running up to him was able to shed some light on the situation.

            "Our lord is under attack!  We must go back to our headquarters immediately!"

            "I agree!" Lu Xun shouted in his state of surprise.  "But…how did _that_ happen!?"

            "I do not know, sir."

            "Never mind that…spread the word!  We must go back to our base camp.  If Cao Cao is there, then we will be able to attack him from behind!"

            The troops moved out at double-time, but Lu Xun knew perfectly well that they would have to hurry even more than that if they were to save Sun Quan.

By Sun Quan's former tree…

            Gan Ning woke up to find a large number of Wu soldiers standing around him, many of them still carrying wienies.

            "Gan Ning sir!" reported a major, "We have caught Cao Cao's army in a two-pronged attack, but the battle rages on.  Lu Xun's force is moving back here to support us as well.  We think Cao Cao may surrender!"

            "That's good, but…" Gan Ning started.

            The soldiers helped him to his feet.

            "Where is Sun Quan?"

            "He is in the safety of Lu Su's backup force, Gan Ning, sir."

            "Phew, that's good to hear.  Now, let's crush Wei!"

            Gan Ning and his troops moved forward to battle.

At Sun Quan's position…

            "My lord!" Lu Su hailed, "Cao Cao seeks to make out terms for surrender."

            "Aha!  I knew he'd break down soon enough!" Sun Quan declared in a flourish.

            "Erm, no, my lord.  He means terms for _our_ surrender."

            "What!?"

            "He says that he has two things that you hold most dear, and that if you care for them you'll pull your army back away from He Fei."

            "What could he possibly have?"

            Sun Quan scratched his head and found that something was missing.

            "MY HAT!!  My sister Sun Shang Xiang made that hat…it was the only article of clothing she ever made for anyone!  I'll make Cao Cao pay dearly for this insult!  Where is she, anyway?"

            "Where is who?"

            "My sister."

            "She was being chased by Zhang Liao earlier, I recall."

            "Hmmm, send a messenger to Cao Cao's army and tell him I will meet with him."

            "Yes, my lord."

A short time later, between Sun Quan's troops and Cao Cao's troops…

            "All right, Cao Cao!" Sun Quan said angrily.  "I know you have my hat, but what else do you have?"

            "Why don't you see for yourself?" Zhang Liao taunted as he stepped out from behind Wei lines, dragging Sun Shang Xiang with him.

            "My sister!  How dare you!"

            "I assure you, Sun Quan," Cao Cao said suavely, "that if you pull your army back and let Wei occupy He Fei that I will give your sister…_and_ your hat…back to you."

            "Why should I trust you!?"

            "You have no choice, supreme commander of Wu.  Come now, your sister and your hat for calling this battle a draw and both of us falling back to our initial positions…it's not a bad deal."

            "Very well.  Release my sister and I'll give the orders to prepare to retreat.  Then give me my hat and I'll actually have them do it."

            "Do as he says, Zhang Liao."

            Zhang Liao released Sun Shang Xiang and shoved her towards Sun Quan.

            "That's what you get for believing that Zhang Liao would _ever_ settle for a draw, woman!"

            Sun Quan gave the order to assemble for an organized retreat.

            "Now, my hat."

            Cao Cao tossed it to him.

            "Good.  Everyone, let's move out.  Send a detachment to Lu Xun and Gan Ning's forces to cease their attacks on Wei and retreat back to our territory."

A few hours later…

            "Cao Cao will pay _dearly_ for this insult to the Sun clan of Wu!" Sun Quan exclaimed as he rode away in retreat.  "But it does not matter…not anymore.  Soon my elite fighting force will be ready for action, and Wu will finally triumph over Wei."

            Sun Quan wrote, "Prepare Archer Force Omega for its field test," on a piece of parchment and handed it to a mounted messenger.

            "Ride hard to our secret training ground and tell you-know-who to do as that order decrees," Sun Quan said.

            "Wei took victory today," he continued, "but we will not lose to them again!  Gan Ning, I'm putting you in charge of getting more of those wienie things of yours for our troops!"

            "But the wienie shack—" Gan Ning started.

            "—No 'buts!'  Get to work on finding a supply of wienies or something else that will raise morale like them!"

            "Yes, of course."

            "Yes, yes.  With Archer Force Omega and Gan Ning's wienies, Wei will tremble before the might of the Wu army.  You said my defense was stronger than my offense, brother Sun Ce…but defending does not win a war!  We'll win this war, and then _I _will be the one to take _Cao Cao's_ hat thingy!"

Archer Force Omega's role in the Wu army will be disclosed in later chapters.

Post reviews at will.  Chapter two is now up, so check it out!


	2. The Battle at Fan Castle

_Disclaimer:  This fanfic is based on the KOEI video game Dynasty Warriors 3 and its expansion, Dynasty Warriors 3:  Xtreme Legends, a game that is based on _Romance of the Three Kingdoms_, a historical novel that covers the Three Kingdoms period of Chinese history.  Dynasty Warriors 3 and all Dynasty Warriors 3 elements, including its dialogue, are the property of KOEI, while invented characters such as Cao Fodder, the sword Mucao, and the actual content of this fanfic are the co-authors' property.  Other material is the property of its respective owner(s).  In no way may this piece of writing be used for any kind of commercial profit, nor may it be altered and republished by anyone other than the two co-authors._

Well, it took us a long time to get this one together.  No, we're not dead.  We were busy playing DW3:XL and DW4…and doing other things, of course.  At any rate, we finally give you the next chapter in the campaign to control ancient China.

The Battle at Fan Castle

_"A dike?  Oh no!"_

_---Sima Yi_

Inside a corridor in Fan Castle, four years after the battle at He Fei…

            Cao Cao approached his strategist, Sima Yi, who was in the process of "punishing" a disobedient Wei soldier by beating him the head with his black feather duster.

            "Sima Yi," Cao Cao said.  "I need to speak with you for a moment."

            Sima Yi stopped beating the soldier on the head and walked off with Cao Cao.  The soldier's echoing laughter at Sima Yi could be heard from some distance away as Cao Cao began to speak.

            "You remember the Wei victory over Wu at He Fei, don't you?" he inquired.

            "Of course, Lord Cao Cao.  It was Wu's most humiliating defeat ever.  Wu was defeated by Zhang Liao capturing Sun Quan's sister."

            "…And his hat thingy," Cao Cao added.

            "Yes, and his hat thingy."

            "Well, I confiscated something _else _very valuable to the Wu army that day."

            "What is it?" Sima Yi asked curiously.

            "Sun Quan's sword," Cao Cao dramatized.

            "I thought you only captured his sister…" Sima Yi said, puzzled.

            "And hat thingy!" Cao Cao pointed out irritably.

            "And hat thingy," Sima Yi echoed.

            "And sword," Cao Cao went on.

            "Don't you think he'd miss his sword after four years?" Sima Yi asked meditatively.

            "Do you honestly think that someone who would allow himself to be _tied_ to a _tree_ in the middle of a fierce battle would miss his _sword_?" Cao Cao asked demandingly in response.

            Sima Yi thought about this.

            "No…not really…no," he decided finally.

            Cao Cao held up a large, highly decorated long sword.  Sima Yi viewed it in reverent awe.

            "Do you know what this sword can _do_, Sima Yi?" Cao Cao questioned.

            "No, what can it do?" Sima Yi responded loyally.

            "It has the power to control _the archers_!" Cao Cao shouted with a taint of megalomania in his voice, raising the sword above his head in a power trip.

            A sound of thunder boomed one single time outside.

            "You have the power of the _immortals_!" Sima Yi exclaimed in a loud whisper, awed and amazed.  Then he said a bit louder, "You have the _power_ to _control_ the _archers_!  _You_ have power over _archers_!"

            "Actually, no, no, I can't."

            "Well…why not?  I don't understand…" Sima Yi sounded highly disappointed.

            "Because it's not my sword.  I can't use it.  _My_ sword has the power to make people drop dead in a purple flash of light just by me waving it near them a few times.   Trust me, that's sufficient in most situations."

            "Oh…well…what are we going to do with it, if we can't use it?"

            "I'm entrusting the sword to you…I'm leaving on a journey to Han Zhong.  You may return the sword to him, but only if he offers us something _really_ good in return," Cao Cao warned.

            "…Like his hat thingy?" Sima Yi asked anxiously.

            "Wha…?  But…NO!  Trading his sword for his _hat thingy_ is _not_ an option!" Cao Cao yelled, enraged.

            "I think it's a good trade…" Sima Yi muttered.

            "NO!  Something _helpful_!  Something like an entangling military alliance between us," Cao Cao said, smirking mischievously.

            "Awww…okay…" Sima Yi said, scuffing his feet on the floor, defeated.

At the secret training ground of Wu's Archer Force Omega…

            Sun Quan stood at the edge of the courtyard, deep in his secret headquarters. He sighed and shook his head in disappointment.

            "Four years training…and Archer Force Omega _still_ hasn't gotten any better!" Sun Quan complained to no one in particular. He looked up at the several thousand archers, all standing in very long rows and columns. He waved his hand and a door opened from the stables at the far end of the courtyard. Timidly, someone dressed up as Cao Cao wearing a winged helmet stepped out. Sun Quan watched with mild interest. The archers quickly raised their bows and a burst of arrows flew towards the Cao Cao training dummy. He closed his eyes tightly and his entire body tensed up, awaiting the severe pain of being pierced by several thousand arrows at the same time. The arrows sailed past him and into the stables where immense amounts of screaming could be heard.

            "Why don't you just give up?" Sun Shang Xiang asked mockingly as she walked up behind her brother who spun around to face her. Sun Quan stared at her for a few seconds, studying her carefully, a look of deep thought and confusion on his face. At last he spoke. 

            "Wait…Who're you again?" SSX's eyes snapped wide open when she heard this and she glared at him for a moment, wondering how on earth _he_ was her leader. 

            "I'm your sister! Sun Shang Xiang!?" She shouted in complete rage at his incompetence. 

            "Oh…So you are. Wait…you _can't_ be my sister! She was captured by Wei during the battle at Hei Fei!" Sun Quan gasped loudly and stepped back a few feet. "You must be an assassin!" 

            "No!" She yelled at him. She continued, a low growling sound in her voice as she spoke. "you agreed to retreat from Hei Fei in exchange for myself and your little…hat…thingy, remember?" 

            "Oh yeah…" Sun Quan replied, his words long and drawn out as if he had just been enlightened of a great secret. "It's a good thing they were so willing to give my hat thingy back!" He said happily as he removed his hat thingy from his head and hugged it. SSX sighed and turned to the ranks of archers. 

            "What's wrong with them? They used to be very effective killing machines."

            "I don't know… They've done rather poorly lately. I think it might be that they're developing a secret deep love for Cao Cao." He paused and thought on this for a second. "Maybe…Just maybe if we dressed the target up like Liu Bei then they might…" He brought his sword up and tapped the flat of it on his shoulder as he contemplated his new idea. Sun Shang Xiang stood and watched the archers with him for a moment before something very interesting caught her eye. 

            "That's not your sword!" She exclaimed. Sun Quan turned and faced her, the sword now resting on his shoulder. 

            "What _are_ you talking about? Any sword I want in this entire military base is mine!" He informed her. As if arriving on cue, a soldier ran by the two of them. As he was passing by, Sun Quan dropped the sword he was holding and tackled the soldier. As Sun Quan wrestled the sword away from the soldier, SSX picked up the sword her brother just dropped and examined it. Sun Quan stood up, pulling the soldier up with him. He firmly grasped the poor man by the arm and began to spin him around while the confused soldier screamed about how he was sorry for intruding on Archer Force Omega's practice, not knowing what Sun Quan was really after. The Wu commander tossed the soldier, who landed several feet away from a group of twenty archers who promptly fired arrows into the ground all around him. Sun Quan picked up the sword he had wrestled away from the hapless soldier and held it above his head triumphantly while the terrified little man fled back into the base. "See? Mine," he said to SSX as he pointed to his newly acquired weapon.

            "I know why Archer Force Omega is doing so badly." She said, ignoring him. "This is _not_ the Master Wolf!"

            "Of course it is!" Sun Quan assured her. "See? It's written right here on the blade."

            "I hate to break it to you, but this is just a long sword with 'Master Wolf' written on it." SSX replied bluntly. 

"No no no…" Sun Quan countered, shaking his head. "I thought so too, but Lu Xun himself assured me that this is definitely, beyond a shadow of a doubt the Master Wolf."

            "He did, did he? Well, lets just go have a little talk with him. Come on." SSX said hurriedly as she turned and stared walking off. As Sun Quan followed her he made one last motion with his hand and Archer Force Omega continued their futile attempts to shoot the target practice Cao Cao.

            Lu Xun heard the unmistakable sound of angry footsteps approaching his room. He left his twin sabers on the floor and he peered out the door to see something that made his blood run cold. SSX, with the fake Master Wolf, was storming towards his room followed closely by a befuddled Sun Quan. He quickly slammed the door and retreated to the corner farthest from the door. 

            "LU XUN!" SSX yelled, stopping outside the closed door. 

            "Uh…I'm…strategizing. Go away!" Lu Xun replied loudly with the first thing he could think of. 

            "He sound busy, perhaps we'd better come back la—" The wooden door to Lu Xun's room shattered and splintered and SSX was inside before the wood chips has a chance to hit the ground. 

            "Where's the Master Wolf?" She demanded sharply, her eyes burning with violent anger. 

            "Isn't…that it in your hand?" Lu Xun asked hesitantly. 

            "See, that's what I said but she doesn't seem to—" Sun Quan started before there was a loud sound of vibrating metal and a very schoolgirl-like scream from Lu Xun. Lu Xun opened his eyes and looked up at the sharp edge of the long sword that had pierced his hat and embedded itself in the wall. 

            "Cao Cao has it!" Lu Xun screamed in terror as he tried to scamper towards the door. SSX stomped on his back and stood there. 

            "_Who_ has it?" She asked, a very notable tone of anger in her voice. 

            "Cao Cao has it!" Lu Xun repeated. "Sun Quan left it on the battlefield at He Fei when he fled like a scared little girl." SSX took her foot off of Lu Xun's back, allowing him to turn over and sit on the floor. "When Sun Quan started looking for it, I _was_ going to tell him. But making a fake one was so much easier!" 

            "It's…fake?" Sun Quan looked as if his whole world had just been shattered. SSX rounded on Sun Quan. 

            "And you didn't notice, in a whole _four years_ that your sword was missing?"

            "Well, you have to admit. It _is_ a pretty convincing replica." Sun Quan retorted.

            "…No it isn't!" She turned back to Lu Xun. "And you! Why in the Three Kingdoms would you make a fake Master Wolf? The most powerful artifact that the Wu army possesses? The _one_ thing that pretty much assures us victory in this war?"

            "My swords have a death touch on them…" Lu Xun offered meekly. 

            "Shut up. The Master Wolf is the single piece of steelmongery in all of China that allows us to control the archers. Can your little 'death touch' do that?" She continued on with her rant, pausing for his response. 

            "Well…no, but…" 

            "I thought not! Now, I want you to gather up some troops and go offer Cao Cao something tempting in return to get that sword back! Something like… an entangling military alliance. Now go on, go!" Lu Xun left and Sun Quan started to follow him, afraid of what she was going to do to him since this was partly his fault. "Not so fast!" She said, stopping him dead in his tracks. "_You're_ going to write, in great detail, why it is important not to leave your magical sword on the battlefield where your mortal enemy can get to it."

            "But...why do I have to? _You're_ the one who tied me to that tree and laid it there." Sun Quan complained. SSX realized that he was very right, but she wasn't about to let him know that and take the blame for this whole crisis. 

            "Not important. Completely beside the point." She said as she ushered him out of the room. "Now, go on, go away. Shoo." SSX waited until he was far enough away and breathed a sigh of relief.

In Sima Yi's office in Fan Castle…

            "Who's there?" Sima Yi asked loudly as he heard a pair of boots come clunking hurriedly through the corridor outside.

            "Lord Sima Yi!" the Wei messenger cried as he stumbled into the room.  "The Shu army is approaching!"

            "What!?" Sima Yi exclaimed.  "How's that possible?"

            "It…well…it's not a large force…but it's something."

            "Who's leading them?" Sima Yi probed.

            "Their leader is Guan Yu, he and his son Ping were seen at the forefront of the advance."

            "What are they doing now?"

            "They're camped outside and don't seem to be doing anything yet.  They may be planning to lay a siege." 

            "That's absurd," Sima Yi mused, scratching his chin.  "Why would Guan Yu try to besiege Fan Castle using a force that is _obviously_ inferior to our own?"

            "He was charged by Liu Bei with the protection of this castle," the messenger offered.  "He may be coming to avenge himself."

            "He must have a devious strategy…we cannot let our guard down.  Very well, you may go.  Report to me immediately if you notice any strange activity among the enemy."

            "Yes, of course I will, my lord!" the messenger confirmed as he left, charging out through the corridor in just as much of a hurry as when he came in.

"This is most disturbing," Sima Yi murmured to himself as he began to pace around the room.  Grabbing a sheaf of parchment from one of the shelves near the wall, he sat down at his desk and smirked as a plan formed in his mind.  "We'll win this…whether Guan Yu likes it or not!  Let's see if he can deal with fighting _two_ armies at once!"

As Sima Yi wrote, he didn't notice the rain that was beginning to fall outside.

Outside Fan Castle…

            "Father," Guan Ping addressed Guan Yu, "how will this dike we are building serve to help us take Fan Castle?"

            "The dike will allow us to flood Fan Castle," Guan Yu explained confidently, "drowning most of the Wei forces inside in the process.  Once they're gone, it will be an easy task to take their commander."

            "Yes, of course, Father."

            Guan Ping looked about at the work that was being done on the dike.  It was essentially complete, and from the looks of the storm that was brewing, it wouldn't be long before they could flood Fan Castle.

            "Er, Father?"

            "Yes, young Ping?"

            "Won't this flood attack cause serious structural damage to the castle, not to mention create a mess that will be a pain to clean up?"

            "Look on the bright side, son," Guan Yu rationalized cheerfully, "At least Wei won't be able to use it."

Inside Sima Yi's office in Fan Castle…

            A messenger approached Sima Yi's chair quietly, bowed before him, and said urgently, "My Lord!  The enemy is building a dike to the side of Fan Castle!"

            "A dike?  Oh no!" Sima Yi responded, standing up immediately.  He rushed out of his office, down the corridor, and onto the western wall of the castle, where rain was pouring down.

            Outside, Cao Ren and a small troop of Wei soldiers met him and followed him to the edge of the wall.  Sima Yi looked over the wall's edge and scowled.

            "This must be the work of Zhuge Liang!" he growled.  Turning to Cao Ren and the rest of the crowd, he commanded, "Spread the word to the troops!  Prepare for battle!"

            The crowd dispersed with a wave of Sima Yi's hand, several of them flickering out into the D-Plane as they ran off to inform the others of the Shu army's offensive plans.

            "Wu…you'd better be coming!" the Wei commander muttered.

Near Fan Castle along a road…

            Thunder crackled as rain fell upon the advancing Wu forces.

            "We must fight Guan Yu," Lu Meng said gravely to Lu Xun.

            "It's fine!" Lu Xun responded, turning to face him, "Right now, Guan Yu is distracted by the attack on Fan Castle!"

            "Ha!" Lu Meng bellowed as his kicked his horse into a full gallop, though his cry was hard to distinguish from the sounds of the rainstorm.

            "What's that up ahead?" Lu Xun inquired, looking at something that was rapidly approaching them.

            "It looks like a Wei soldier," Gan Ning observed.

            Sure enough, a Wei messenger was approaching.  He turned his horse and began to ride alongside the Wu officers.

            "The Shu army is attacking!  They intend to flood the castle with a dike!" the messenger shouted.

            Lu Xun looked over at Lu Meng quickly.  "I'll ride on ahead to see what's going on.  You and Gan Ning should stay with the troops to keep them together."

            "We'll do that," Gan Ning responded, "Go have a look around and see how the fight is going so far."

            Lu Xun rode forward into the rainstorm with the Wei messenger.  "What about Master Wolf?" he asked.

            "Er, what?" the messenger asked in return.

            "Sun Quan's…never mind, I'll see Sima Yi about it personally."

Outside Sima Yi's office on the west wall of Fan Castle…

            After a short period of word spreading and equipment readying, the Wei forces inside of Fan Castle were ready for battle and awaited Sima Yi's first orders.  Pang De, Xu Huang, Cao Ren, and Cao Fodder also stood at ready, waiting to join their respective forces and move out.

            "Guan Yu!  You think this water will stop me?" Sima Yi asked rhetorically over the castle wall before turning to face the Wei forces and officers who had gathered for the coming battle.  "Don't worry about the water.  First, expel the enemy!"

            Confirmatory murmurs ran through the soldiers.

            "Lord Sima Yi," began Pang De earnestly, "let me be the one to stop any initial attacks Guan Yu may attempt!"

            "Consider it done," Sima Yi replied.  "Pang De, advance!"

            Pang De led his force away to head down into the central area of the castle.

            Xu Huang then said, "My troops will wait along the southern wall of the castle until Pang De calls for us to advance to assist him."

            "A wise choice of positioning," Sima Yi complimented.  "When the Wu officers and army arrive at the south gate, I would like for you to have someone direct them to me…unless I'm strategizing!  They can wait until afterwards if I am."

            "Of course, Lord."

            Xu Huang's force began to march away.

            "Cao Ren…Cao Fodder," Sima Yi said, "You two stay here with me for now.  I'll send you forward with detachments of troops once I'm more certain of the situation."

            The two nodded.

            "The rest of you," Sima Yi continued, addressing the soldiers, "need to fan out and be on the lookout for Shu troops along the west wall.  I doubt that they'll get this far, but you never know!"

            The troops immediately scattered out to lookout positions.

            "Good, now the three of us are alone," Sima Yi said in a much more casual tone.

            "What do you require of us?" Cao Ren asked politely.

            "Do you know any way to fix this problem?" Sima Yi asked innocently.  He held up his black, feathery fan, which had gone completely limp from being soaked with rainwater.

            "Your fan?" Cao Fodder asked, looking at the dilapidated thing.

            "You might try drying it off for a start," Cao Ren said intuitively.

            "Er, yes, that might help," Sima Yi replied.  "Well, I'd best be heading into my office now.  I have to strategize."

            "Yes, of course," Cao Fodder said with a deep bow.

On the south wall of Fan Castle…

            "So, the Shu army has taken up an offensive position already," Lu Xun commented absently as he finished listening to the messenger's report.

            "Yes, Guan Yu seems to be leading a strike force into the lower levels of the castle at the moment," the messenger added.  "Lord Pang De is moving to intercept him with a unit of archers."

            "I see…Will Pang De be able to hold him for the time being?"

            "Pang De has archers," the messenger said matter-of-factly. 

            "I see," Lu Xun replied knowingly.  He rubbed his chin momentarily and then added, "What does he intend to do with these archers?"

            "You're from Wu.  What do you _think_ he intends to do with the archers?"

            "Good point."  Lu Xun paused momentarily.  "Where is Lord Sima Yi?  I need to see him as soon as possible."

            "He's strategizing now, and he wouldn't like being disturbed," the messenger replied in an almost scolding tone.

            "I'm a strategist from Wu.  What do you think _I_ came here to do!?" Lu Xun was irritated by the remark.

            "You came here to assist us in this battle, but you aren't doing it willingly."

            "Whatever gave you _that_ idea?" Lu Xun asked as innocently as he could manage.

            "There's a very expensive looking sword hanging in the back of the war room.  There's a little sign on the wall next to it that reads, 'Notice:  This is to be returned to Wu only if they give us something really good in return.'  You came here for that."

            "Okay, so we came here for that, but _come_ now, we've got a fight on our hands!" Lu Xun grumbled.

            "Well, either way, Sima Yi doesn't want any interruptions at the moment."  The messenger's stance on the situation was firm.

            "So what am I supposed to do until then?" Lu Xun questioned.

            "Well, you could stand right here and do nothing until someone can show you where the war room is, or you could lead a one-man charge into enemy lines."

            "Why in the world would I want to do something suicidal like that!?"

            "It seems pretty popular these days."

            "Just because everyone else jumps off a cliff doesn't mean I have to.  I still don't see why I should even think about doing that."  
            "Sima Yi would be impressed by it."

            "Right, where are the enemy soldiers again?"

Outside Sima Yi's office in the corridor…

            Sima Yi slammed the door quite forcefully behind him as he exited the office.  "What do you want?" he asked Cao Fodder bitterly.  He fanned himself a bit with his black feather duster, which had straightened back out somewhat but was still quite wet.

            Cao Fodder answered timidly, "Lord Sima Yi?  There is a unit of five Shu soldiers here who want to see you."

            "Oh, how nice!" he replied warmly.  "Wait a minute!" he exclaimed suddenly in an angered tone.  "_Shu_ soldiers?"

            "Yes…they seem to be lost.  They got stuck in the D-Plane for a while."

            "I don't _care_ if they're lost!" Sima Yi ranted.  "They ought to be _dead_ by now if they were sighted in our base camp!"

            "Well, yes, sir, you see…" Cao Fodder began uncertainly.

            "Enough!  I will deal with them myself!  Bodyguards!  Come!  We must fight!"

            Sima Yi stormed out onto the western wall of the castle.  Cao Fodder followed him uneasily at a short distance.

Near the center of the lower area of the castle among some buildings…

            Guan Yu's attacking force stopped in its tracks when they saw Pang De and a squad of archers appear from the misty cloud of rain.

            "You can advance in the rain," Pang De declared boldly.  "How about when it's raining arrows?"

            The archers drew aimed at the Shu troops and let loose a volley that left several Shu soldiers very dead.  As if to illustrate the idea of raining arrows, they staggered their reloads and fired continuously.

            At this point, Guan Yu's entire advance force did a full about-face and ran like maniacs toward the eastern wall stairs.  A red-clad figure came charging out of Pang De's archer ambush with a pair of twin sabers drawn and ready.

            "Hyaaaa!" Lu Xun shouted loudly as he charged after the fleeing Shu troops.  He rampaged through the crowd, cutting down any unfortunate privates he could catch.  Eventually, the Shu army got back up onto the castle wall, and Lu Xun decided not to pursue farther.

            Upon returning to Pang De's position, Lu Xun commented, "Yes!  I have made them retreat!" before running back toward the southern wall of the castle.

            Pang De sighed loudly.

Outside Sima Yi's office on the western wall of Fan Castle…

            "What is all of _this_!?" Sima Yi exclaimed.

            About twenty Wei soldiers were circle-strafing aimlessly around the five Shu soldiers, who were likewise circle-strafing aimlessly around some Wei soldiers.

            Suddenly, the sergeant in charge of the four Shu privates became very angry.  He looked at Sima Yi and exclaimed, "Since you saw us, now you must die!"

            "What _are_ you talking about?" Sima Yi demanded.

            "He's a victory condition!  A VICTORY CONDITION!" the sergeant exclaimed in a psychotic tone while pointing frantically at Sima Yi.  "Kill him NOW!"

            "Bodyguards!" Sima Yi called.  "Take care of them!"

            There was no response to Sima Yi's request.  Sima Yi suddenly found himself parrying five different swords with his fan.

            "Bodyguards!" he called again.

            A pair of Wei privates ran up to him, and both looked out of breath.  They were each wielding a poorly crafted iron sword.

            "BGs reporting for duty!" one confirmed cheerfully.

            "What!?" Sima Yi exclaimed as he stopped a few more hits.  "You aren't my bodyguards!  My bodyguards were dressed in that bulky looking armor that majors wear, and there were eight!  Who do you think you are?"

            "I'm Lu Pu, and this is Cheng Dang.  We'll be your bodyguards from now on."

            "I don't care about your names!" Sima Yi declared adamantly.  "You're all just 'Bodyguard' to me!"

            Sima Yi parried a couple more hits.

            "Oh, no, our names are very important.  It's part of a new system for the way bodyguards conduct themselves.  You see…if one of us is forced to retreat, then…"

            "RETREAT!?" Sima Yi was enraged.  "You're bodyguards for crying out loud!  You're supposed to guard my body with your own, not run away like pansies!"

            "Yes, well, with enough training we will eventually…"

            "I don't care!  Guard my body!  GUARD MY BODY!"

            Sima Yi was finding the constant flurry of blows harder to block.

            "Yes, sir!" the two bodyguards replied suddenly and cheerfully.

            The two of them began strafing mindlessly around the Shu troops.

            "Go on, attack!" Sima Yi commanded.

            One bodyguard took a weak-looking swipe at the sergeant.

            "Hee-hee, that tickled," the sergeant replied before slashing the bodyguard mortally."

            A messenger ran up to Sima Yi, who grabbed the scroll out of his hands, turning to face the messenger.  The words, "Bodyguard has retreated!" were written on it.

            "What do you mean, _retreated_?  I just saw him die!" Sima Yi was confounded and threw the scroll off the castle wall, shaking his head.

            The messenger scurried off without replying.  The "dead" bodyguard quickly stood up while Sima Yi wasn't looking and ran off inside the castle.

            A pair of privates double-teamed the other bodyguard and slashed him mortally as well.  The messenger appeared again and handed Sima Yi another scroll.

            "Bodyguard has retreated!" Sima Yi read aloud, quite angrily.  "HOW!?"  Sima Yi threw this scroll off the castle wall as well.  The other bodyguard quickly stood and ran back toward the door.

            Sima Yi turned around.  The bodyguard fell to the ground again.

            "See!  DEAD!" Sima Yi declared in a deranged voice.  "He's dead!  Not retreated."

            Sima Yi's rant was cut short by a sword swatting at him.  He turned to parry, and the bodyguard stood up immediately and retreated into the castle.

            Cao Fodder stepped a bit closer to the sergeant and drew the sword Mucao from its sheath.  Suddenly, eight fully-armored bodyguards with well-made bows and shiny little winged helmets appeared behind him and filled each Shu soldier with arrows.

            "Oh, thanks," Cao Fodder commented nonchalantly before turning to Sima Yi.

            Sima Yi's mouth was hanging open and his fan was held limply at his side.

            "How did _you_ end up with the good bodyguards!?" Sima Yi yelled angrily.

            Cao Fodder shrugged unknowingly.  "When I was asked which bodyguard unit I wanted to protect me I chose this one because it looked really effective."

            "What do you mean 'bodyguard unit?'  They're just bodyguards!  There is _nothing_ special about them!  If they die in one battle, they can be easily replaced…and…"

            "No, no," Cao Fodder said coolly to cut off Sima Yi's rant.  "That's how things used to work.  It's all different now."

            "What do you mean?"

            "I read about it in the Bodyguard Manual in your library."

            "What were _you_ doing in _my_ library?"

            "Just looking at some books," Cao Fodder said weakly.

            "Well, stay out!  I have more strategizing to do!"

            Sima Yi returned to the castle interior with a huff.  As he reached the door, he turned to Cao Fodder and asked coldly, "Why don't you go busy yourself by attacking the Shu fortifications on the east wall or something?  Tell Xu Huang to move up and do that, too."

            "A wonderful plan!" Cao Fodder agreed cheerily.  "I'll get right on it.  Come, bodyguards!"

            Sima Yi watched with great distaste as the eight bodyguards followed Cao Fodder along the wall.  He frowned and entered the castle interior.

On the eastern wall of Fan Castle…

            "Excellent!" Guan Yu said cheerfully.  "Our strategic retreat was successful!"

            Guan Ping looked at his father dubiously.

            "Well, it _was_ a bit disorganized, but it worked!" Guan Yu's optimism was unwavering.

            "They attacked us with an ambush party.  It was an _archer _ambush party at that.  I wouldn't call that a good thing."

            "Lighten up!  We have the advantage!"

            "How so?" Guan Ping inquired.  
            "Soon, oh, so soon…" Guan Yu said prophetically as he watched the downpour of rain.

            "The water?"

            "Yes.  You see…it doesn't even matter what happens right now.  We just have to sit and wait.  They'll all get drowned."

            "_All_ of them?" Guan Ping asked doubtfully.

            "Well, most…"

            "…But not all."

            "But…" Guan Yu stammered.

            "Not all!"

            "Either way, it doesn't matter," Guan Yu said firmly.

            "If you say so, father.  We just seem quite outnumbered."

            "Don't worry!  We have archer towers!"

            "Hmm.  That's true.  What do you want me to do now?"

            Guan Yu thought briefly about this.  "Go down to the southern end of the eastern wall and have your troops guard the stairs.  Make sure that the Wei forces don't get up on the wall, or the flood won't be as effective!"

            "It sounds like a good plan, father.  I'll get right on it."

On the eastern wall of Fan Castle…

            "Hmm…an archer tower." Cao Fodder determined.  "All right, bodyguards, take care of it!"

            "Yes, sir!" they all shouted as they ran toward the tower.

            Arrows began to fly out of the tower.  Cao Fodder's bodyguards stood stock-still with their bows lowered.

            "Well, go on!  Kill them!"  Cao Fodder ordered, exasperated.  He was now running about trying to dodge the incoming arrows.

            "Oh, we're sorry, sir, but we can't do that," a bodyguard stated matter-of-factly.

            "What!?  WHY!?" Cao Fodder shrieked, now jumping about in his dodging.

            "Archer's Code of Conduct, article five, section four.  'Archers serving as bodyguards shall not fire arrows upon archers in towers.'"  The bodyguard seemed proud of his recitation.

            "Pull back!"  Cao Fodder yelped, jumping away from the tower and toward the stairs.

            "Yes, sir!" affirmed the bodyguards, following him hurriedly away.

Near the eastern wall of Fan Castle…

            "I wonder how Cao Fodder's advance into the Shu defenses up on the wall is faring," Xu Huang pondered aloud.

            "I do not know," Pang De answered ponderously.  "He should be sending a messenger to us shortly so that we can have a look at the status of the battle."

            The two Wei generals were standing beneath a small overhang, so they were mostly sheltered from the rain.  Their troops and bodyguards stood nearby with their weapons at ready, loyally getting rained on.

            Xu Huang looked toward the eastern wall.  "He's a fair addition to our regular forces…" he continued slowly as he drew to a pause, "…but I wonder how he will fare in such horrid weather.  That isn't to say he isn't a worthy commander, but I do feel sorry for him having to endure—"

            Xu Huang's verbal pondering was brought to an abrupt close when he heard a shout from the eastern wall.  In the din of the rainstorm, he couldn't make out whose voice it was, but he could make out the message.  Even without knowing who had shouted, he knew something was amiss.  Nothing good could follow when someone was heard shouting, "ARCHERS!"

Inside Wei's war room…

            "So, Zhou Zhou, how does it feel to know that your cooking will help us to _annihilate_ the attacking Shu force?"

            Sima Yi was sitting across from the wienie chef, who was tightly bound and gagged.

            "Mmmff!" the chef struggled.

            "Are you tired of being tied up yet?"

            "MMMF!"

            "Too bad.  I can't let you out until I see the _results_ of your cooking on our troops' morale.  It's a quality assurance matter."

            "MMmmmF!  Mmf, MMMF!"

            "Yes, yes.  That's lovely.  I think I'll send a message to Pang De to head for the super-secret wienie supply depot now.  'Eat at Zhou's,' as they say!  Ha ha!"

Near the eastern wall…

            "There're archer towers up there!" Cao Fodder exclaimed as he ran up to Pang De and Xu Huang.  "And they're functional!"

            "Of course they are," Pang De scolded.  "Why would they set up towers if they didn't intend to use them?"

            "I don't know, but it sure seems to happen pretty often," Cao Fodder pointed out.  "According to _Archers and You_, over half of all archer towers are empty."

            "Well, maybe they're just on an extended break," Xu Huang offered.

            "Whatever, the point is that they're being a pain and not letting us advance."

            "I'll take care of this," Xu Huang declared.  "Troops, take down those towers!"

            A unit of soldiers wielding sword marched quickly up onto the wall and came back down about twenty seconds later.

            "Archers annihilated, sir!"

            Cao Fodder ran back up the stairs and saw that the archers were indeed gone, though the tower was intact.  "But… HOW?  How'd they do that?"

            "They're just good like that," Xu Huang said with a grin.

            "Excuse me," a messenger said as he came forward.  "I have a message for Lord Pang De."

            "Yes?" the Wei officer asked.

            "Lord Sima Yi wants you to begin the wienie attack now.  The wienies previously prepared by Zhou Zhou should be ready to roast now."

            "Excellent!  We shall roast wienies and raise troop morale!" Pang De declared.

            Pang De and a select few soldiers charged to the southwest.

            "Erm," Cao Fodder started.  "What…what did he say?"

            "I don't know," Xu Huang said simply, blinking slowly as he watched Pang De run off.  "Let's go kill things up on the wall."

            Cao Fodder shrugged.  "Okay."

            Their units pressed onward.

Near the super-secret wienie supply depot…

            "Men!  Listen to me!"  Pang De commanded.  "These additional rations will give our men a solid shot at utterly annihilating Guan Yu, his army, and that idiot son of his!  Now then, we must get these crates of super-secret supplies back to the upper level before the castle floods any more than it already has!  Our _wienie attack_ shall succeed!"

            "How are the supplies 'super-secret' if you just told us that those crates were full of wienies?" a major questioned.

            "Don't be impudent!  Now then, get moving!  Put your _backs_ into it!"

            "But we're already wearing heavy armor…"

            "No 'buts!'"

            "But…"

            "NONE!"

            Grumbling and soaked, Pang De's troops picked up the crates full of the yummy wienies and began to exit the super-secret wienie supply depot, which was labeled by a rather uncreative-looking sign that read, "Zhou's Wienie Shack."

            "Hey, just a thought commander…"

            "NOPE!"

            "How are we…"

            "I won't put up with this!"

            "…supposed to roast…"

            "I CAN'T _HEAR_ YOU!"  Pang De placed his soaking hands over his ears to emphasize this.

            "…wienies in the rain!?"

            Pang De stopped dead in his tracks and thought about this.  This was his glorious moment.  He almost had enough brilliant maneuvers, cunning betrayals, and cheap fighting tactics under his belt to step out of the generic-ness of Lu Bu impersonation and into the glorious light of being a general that could actually be distinguished from another one.  But the rain would change all that, he realized.  He would be unable to conduct the morale-raising wienie roast.  He would fail.  _No_, he resolved, this would be _his_ day to shine!  No amount of water would stop him _or_ his super-secret wienie attack!

Back at Sima Yi's position on the castle ramparts, less than ten minutes later…

            Pang De's force has been obliterated.

            Half our army just got drowned.

            Just be glad we're not incinerated

            By a Wu fire attack that would burn us down.

            Lord Sima Yi, please forgive

            Pang De for his ignorance.

            He only had one life to live,

            But in death he's doing a fishy dance.

            Though this castle's inundated

            We must not from this battle shrink.

            Though with rainwater we'll be saturated

            We'll still clear up vile Guan Yu's stink.

                        ---Cao Fodder

            "So…I see that Cao Fodder shares Lord Cao Cao's talent for writing poetry," Sima Yi commented happily.

            He sat there and stared at the parchment for about half a minute, thinking he had surely missed something.

            Suddenly, it hit him.

            "PANG DE WHAT!?!?!" he shouted at the top of his lungs.  "OUR ARMY _WHO_?  _HOW_ did this happen!?"

            His shouting startled Cao Fodder, who could hear him from a good distance down the rampart in the rain.  He ran back to Sima Yi with great haste.

            "Cao Fodder!  Is this your idea of a joke?"

            Cao Fodder lowered his head mournfully.  "I am afraid not, Lord Sima Yi," he said in his grief.

            "So Pang De _actually_ died?"

            "Ah yes…Lord Pang De…we all knew him well…so brave, so bold, so generic…so waterlogged…"

            Cao Fodder shed a single tear that was utterly indistinguishable from the torrential downpour.

            "Good!  I never liked him anyway!  Besides, we can easily replace him in the next battle…it's not like he's any different from the rest of the world's Lu Bu Impersonators."

            Cao Fodder's mouth hung open; he was aghast that Sima Yi would dishonor a general who had just been drowned by the enemy.

            "Oh _come_ now, Cao Fodder…all generic generals are _exactly_ the same…"

            He paused and looked at Cao Fodder, who was wearing the same exact outfit that Pang De had been wearing.

            "…Erm, except for you, that is…go away now, you're bothering me!"

            "What _am_ I, then?"

            "Well…uh…"

            "Yes…?"

            "Oh, I don't know, now get away from me, you silly ush!"

            "Silly _what_?"

            "Silly what _what_?"

            "Silly _ush_?  What is ush supposed to mean?"

            "I don't know.  You're still bothering me.  Go away before I take the feather duster to you…go on now!"

            Cao Fodder stared blankly at the black feather duster that was all slumped over from the rainwater.  He sighed and walked away to observe the battle, wondering why his cousin's uncle would leave someone like _him_ in charge.

            About three minutes passed.  Sima Yi stood there meditatively.

            "Wait…If Pang De was killed…" Sima Yi pondered.

            Cao Fodder quickly approached Sima Yi again.

            "Sorry to disturb you again, but I have another message."

            He tossed a parchment in Sima Yi's hand and scampered off.

            I'm sorry for getting out of line,

            But their flood attack has now succeeded,

            So I'll send this message in another rhyme

            That our wienie attack has been prevented.

                        ---Cao Fodder

            "That fool Guan Yu," Sima Yi resolved, his hands shivering in rage.  "Even if we lose the castle and all the wienies, we _must_ beat him!"

            He flung the parchment away over the rampart and down into the flooded Fan Castle.

Near the northeastern corner of the castle wall…

            "Success!" Guan Yu cheered.  "My son, look!  The Wei army is being drowned!"

            "As are some of our own troops," Guan Ping added uneasily.  "And Xu Huang and Cao Fodder just broke into our defenses on the eastern wall."

            "Oh, always the pessimist!  Look on the bright side, young Ping, we have a good chance at victory now."

            "How do we get at Sima Yi now?  The way is flooded."

            "Very simple, my son, _very _simple.  We will use the large, conveniently placed pieces of debris that are floating on the surface of the water as stepping stones to maneuver our army across the rooftops and to the opposite wall of the castle!  Gather the men and prepare to move out.  Wei is cornered with _no support at all_; we shall be triumphant!"

            Guan Yu thrust Blue Dragon into the air as a signal to move out.

On the southern castle wall…

            "For this battle, we will ally with Wei," Lu Meng declared to Lu Xun, Gan Ning, and the Wu reinforcement troops.  "Together, we will _destroy_ Guan Yu!"

            "Wonderful speech, Lu Meng, wonderful," Lu Xun complimented.

            "Yes, it was quite fitting," Gan Ning added.

            "You sure took your precious time getting here," Lu Xun added.

            "It couldn't be helped," Lu Meng responded solemnly.

            They stood there for a few moments without saying anything further, letting themselves and their troops get thoroughly soaked in the process.

            "Right," Lu Xun said pertly to break the silence.  "I'll go see Sima Yi _right now _about getting Master Wolf back."

            "I can go see if Wei is willing to give up Zhou Zhou yet…or at least some wienies," Gan Ning offered.

            "Well…ah…" Lu Meng started, "…I'll take the troops north along the rooftops and scare the Shu forces with my frizzy hair…or something."

            "Brilliant, Lu Meng," Lu Xun said cheerfully.  He gave Lu Meng a pat on the shoulder before running off to find Sima Yi.

            "Troops…Move out!" Lu Meng ordered.

            Gan Ning stood there pondering how to locate Zhou Zhou amidst the confusion of battle and this torrential downpour.  Instead of trying to hunt the wienie chef down individually, he decided to ask Cao Ren or one of the other officers about his whereabouts.  He ran onward toward Wei HQ, following after Lu Xun.

Inside Sima Yi's office…

            "Oh my…I see what Lord Sima Yi meant when he said that this chair was fun," Cao Ren said as he bobbed up and down in the plushy, cushioned seat.

            "Cao Ren!" Sima Yi's voice barked from the corridor outside.  "Cao Ren, are you in my office?"

            Cao Ren heard Sima Yi approaching the office, and he certainly didn't want to be caught sitting in his commander's chair.  He quickly dashed to the corner of the room and knelt down behind some shelves containing stacks of scrolls and blank parchments.  Taking only a moment of movement to ensure he was not visible from the door or the chair, he became very still and awaited Sima Yi's entry.

            The door swung open and clanked softly against the brick wall.  Sima Yi looked around as he entered but saw nothing out of the ordinary.

            "That's odd," Sima Yi said with a hint of befuddlement in his voice.

            Shrugging slightly, he walked over to the shelves and began to rummage through the scrolls of parchment.  After half a minute of searching, he found the one he sought and brought it to his chair.  He sat down, unfurled the scroll, and began to read it silently.

_When Generic Generals Attack_:

Chapter 11—The Lu Bu Impersonators Surround the Bandit Stronghold

            Ling Yi and Ma Du approached the front gate of the stronghold of the Rank Only Bandit Society.  Pang Xiu, Han Yu, and Ding Zhang led their small group of troops around to the western entrance.  The skirmish went on for ten minutes as the troops of both sides strafed mindlessly around each other, a private or general swinging occasionally.  Finally, troops began to fall, and the gates of the stronghold were opened with a pair of loud creaks…

            Cao Ren didn't quite know what his superior was doing.  He figured that Sima Yi was reading a missive from Cao Cao, or that he was planning a winning strategy to pull the Wei army out of the jaws of defeat and into the arms of victory.  He certainly didn't expect, as he sat as quietly as possible behind the shelves, for Sima Yi to be reading a novel at a time like this.  He couldn't help but wonder what his commander was doing, and he knew that his curiosity would get the better of him sooner or later.

As Cao Ren had been pondering how to escape the office, Sima Yi had been reading.  This is what he was reading at the moment:

…and the Rank Only Bandits had constructed it as their hideaway and safe haven from the laws of the land.  Now their fun as advocates of anarchy would end, thought Han Yu, and order could be restored to Poor Peasant Village.

            As the Impersonators progressed further into this fortress, one of the Rank Only officers approached them.  He wore a winged helmet and sturdy body armor similar to those of the Wing-Helmed Generals Association.

            "Halt, intruders!" the officer ordered.

            "We are agents of the law sent to destroy you and your Rank Only Bandits," Ding Zhang said.  "You cannot stop us by any means!"

            "In the name of Commander…I, Lieutenant Commander, will stop you in your tracks!"

            A great battle of much parrying, strafing and little action ensued as…

            Cao Ren felt something tingling inside his nose.  He twitched it around to try to clear it up, but it was no good.  He pinched his nose, but still nothing…

            …Impersonators were able to defeat Lieutenant Commander and progress forward.  As Pang Xiu ran to face an opposing bandit, he sneezed loudly from the cold weather.  He did not allow this to hinder him, however, and continued onward to end the life of…

            "ACHOO!!" Cao Ren sneezed.

            "AHHH!!" Sima Yi shouted as his body jerked spasmodically to a standing position.  He dropped the scroll to the floor.

            Cao Ren stood up quickly to see what Sima Yi was shouting about.  The moment Sima Yi saw the two curved hair braids, however, his nerves snapped.

            "I-I-It's…I-I-It's…" Sima Yi stammered.

            "Cao Ren!" Cao Ren exclaimed.

            "GET OUT OF HERE _NOW_!!" Sima Yi shrieked.

            "I'm sorry, Lord, I was only in here to…"

            "I don't care _why_ you were hiding in here…I thought you were trying to kill me for a moment there!  Now get out before I get even angrier…or worse…figure out what I'm talking about!"

            Sima Yi held his black feather duster threateningly in his hand.

            "Yes, yes Lord Sima Yi," Cao Ren replied apologetically.

            Cao Ren humbly turned around and walked toward the door, leaving Sima Yi shivering from his unjustified fright.

Along the debris near the eastern wall of Fan Castle…

            "Father!" Guan Ping addressed Guan Yu.  "Father!  The Wei army is counterattacking!  They have been reinforced by Wu!"

            "What!?" Guan Yu asked angrily.  "Wu has come to aid _them_?"

            "It is indeed true, father.  Our advance is being pushed back.  A number of Wei and Wu soldiers are bearing down on our position."

            "Hmm.  Let me see what tricks I have up my sleeve," Guan Yu said thoughtfully, taking a bit of parchment out of the right sleeve of his robe.  Shielding it from the rain, he looked at it.

            "Flood attack…" Guan Ping read aloud, looking over Guan Yu's shoulder.  "That has already been done.  What is that second plan at the bottom?"

            "It's our list of reinforcements.  Zhou Cang is bringing some troops to reinforce us from the south."

            "Oh.  What good will _that_ do?" Guan Ping asked.

            "Zhou Cang can advance northward along the debris while we push west into the advancing enemies.  We will be able to attack them on both sides and destroy them!"

            "Is Zhou Cang even here yet?  Will we be able to get word to him of this command when he arrives?" Guan Ping was almost hysterical.

            "Patience, young Ping.  We will win this battle if we can hold out until reinforcements arrive."

            "The reinforcements are a fairy tale," Guan Ping muttered.

            "Well, they're all we have left, young Ping, so let's make the most of them when they arrive."

            "I suppose you want me to work on stopping the enemy advance?"

            "Yes, an excellent idea.  I will fall back slightly and help advance the rearguard."

            "_What_ rearguard?" Guan Ping asked.

            "The _infinitely huge_ number of soldiers who are on their way from our gate.  Now, go on ahead and stop the enemy from advancing."

            "Yes, father," Guan Ping said grimly.

Outside Sima Yi's office…

            Lu Xun and Gan Ning had been directed to the same place by the Wei soldiers, and now both of them stood outside the Wei commander's office in the corridor.

            "It's strange that both Sima Yi and Cao Ren are supposed to be in there," Lu Xun noted.  "I wonder if they're having some sort of strategic meeting in there."

            The door swung open and Cao Ren backed up out of it, meekly waving goodbye to Sima Yi before shutting the door carefully.  He hadn't seen the two Wu generals yet.

            "Ah, hello there!" Gan Ning hailed cordially.

            Cao Ren spun around to face them and stifled his own scream before he could get it out.  He was about to scream because he had just turned around to face two Wu officers, his sworn enemies.  He stifled it because he remembered that Sun Quan was sending envoys to discuss an alliance.  The result of this sudden conflict of thoughts was complete confusion.

            "Er, yes…hello there, I'm Cao Ren," stammered the general.  "Ah, Lord Sima Yi is in his chamber reading…er, strategizing… and you are here from Shu… er, Wu?"

            "Yes," Lu Xun replied as patiently as possible.  The man he saw before him was behaving like a victim of one of those "Cure for All Ailments" potions that could often be found in various marketplaces.

            "Ah, yes, yes indeed.  I suppose you are looking for him, yes."  Cao Ren began to walk absentmindedly down the corridor.

            "Hey, is he through that door?" Gan Ning asked, pointing toward the wooden door in front of him.  Gan Ning didn't want to listen to the muddled Cao Ren any longer than he had to.

            "Yes, yes, he is…but don't be too intrusive!  He's strategizing!"

            "Right, of course," Lu Xun assured, albeit apprehensively.

            Cao Ren walked on down the corridor toward the exit to the ramparts.

            "Well, let's go see what's going on in there," Gan Ning decided.

            Lu Xun reached toward the door, but he stopped.  He looked over his shoulder and questioned slowly, "I thought you were going to ask Cao Ren about Zhou Zhou?"

            "I changed my mind.  I'd rather talk to the man who's in charge."  Gan Ning couldn't help but chuckle slightly.

            The two opened the door carefully and slipped silently into the room.  Sima Yi was sitting quietly on his chair, reading a scroll.

            "Lord Sima Yi?" Lu Xun asked quietly.

            Sima Yi looked up slowly.  "You're finally here.  I have the sword you're after."

            "I'm aware of that," Lu Xun stated.  "Our forces have already arrived to help combat Guan Yu.  We've fulfilled our end of the bargain."

            "Of course.  No one ever said that I had to fulfill mine."

            Gan Ning glared at Sima Yi.  Lu Xun followed suit.

            "Don't look at me like that.  You came to the aid of a sworn enemy and expected me to help you in return?"

            "We came here to get the sword back, and saving your army by reinforcing you was what we agreed to do in return."  Lu Xun's argument remained the same.

            "You've come to demand thanks?  Ha!  You fool!" Sima Yi said coldly as he stood up.  "We could've defeated Guan Yu easily _without _your help!"

            "Don't even try to tell me that.  You were doomed."  Lu Xun was speaking in a very calm tone for someone who had so many reasons to be angry.  Gan Ning wasn't so nice.

            "All right, pal, _look_," Gan Ning began, grabbing Sima Yi by the collar of his robe.  "Give us Master Wolf and everyone will go home happy."

            "Except Guan Yu," Sima Yi added bluntly.

            "Yes," Lu Xun said drolly.  Tired of the word game, he grabbed Sima Yi's fan from a nearby desk.

            "HEY!  Give that back!" Sima Yi demanded.

            "First things first," Lu Xun said simply.  "Bring us the sword."  He grasped one of the feathers in the fan tightly and began to pull weakly at it.

            "Okay!  I'll give you the stupid sword!  Just put the fan down!"

            "I knew you'd comply," Lu Xun said suavely.

            Sima Yi walked down the hallway with them to the war room and retrieved the sword from its holder.  "Here you go.  Take the blasted thing and give me my fan!"  Sima Yi practically shoved Master Wolf into Lu Xun's hands.

            Lu Xun returned Sima Yi's fan.  Sima Yi glared at them.

            "All right, that takes care of _that_ much of our little trade," Gan Ning said darkly.  "How about we discuss Zhou Zhou now?"

            "I don't know what you're talking about."  Sima Yi said.

            "Of course you do.  He's the man who was here preparing wienies and things for your army.  I believe you captured him at He Fei."

            "Oh…_that_ Zhou Zhou."

            "Yes, _that_ Zhou Zhou."

            "Well, I don't know where he is.  You'll just have to find him yourself."

            At this point, a door to the side of room swung open.  Zhou Zhou fell out, completely bound with ropes and a gag.

            "Erm," Sima Yi started.

            "Zhou Zhou!  Gan Ning shouted, untying him quickly.

            "Looks like you _did_ know all about him." Lu Xun said plainly.

            "No, no, you see, it was Pang De who was preparing for a wienie—" Sima Yi began before being interrupted.

            "No way!  No more excuses.  I'm taking Zhou Zhou with me when I leave here," Gan Ning said finally.

            "I'm glad you rescued me when you did," Zhou Zhou said gratefully to Gan Ning.  "Those Wei soldiers were making me slave over a stove making wienies all day long just so they could prepare for their wienie attack.  Now it's ruined… all of it."

            "The wienies…ruined!?" Gan Ning cried out.

            "Well, I'd suspect they wouldn't be too tasty what with all the water—" Zhou Zhou didn't even have time to finish his sentence before Gan Ning ran out the door in search of the lost wienies.

            "Go follow him, Zhou Zhou," Lu Xun ordered.  "I'll finish things here."

            Zhou Zhou nodded and ran off after Gan Ning.

            Sima Yi, seeing that he had Lu Xun alone, suddenly began trying to beat him about the head with his fan.  Lu Xun didn't even flinch.

            "Why can't I hurt you?" Sima Yi asked, dumbfounded.

            "We're allies," Lu Xun said weakly.  "We can't hurt each other."

            Lu Xun held Master Wolf in both hands and calmly walked outside, leaving Sima Yi alone.

On the floating debris a few minutes later…

            "Wienies…" Gan Ning lamented.  "I will avenge your wetness!"

            "Come on," Lu Meng entreated, "We must advance!  Xu Huang and Cao Fodder are awaiting our support!"

            "All right," Gan Ning sighed.  "Sorry for getting so emotional.  I just hate to see good wienies go to waste."

            "Yes, that's nice, now let's move!" Lu Xun commanded as he dragged Gan Ning away from the water's edge.

            "Right, Guan Yu will pay!" Gan Ning declared.  He raised his sword, prepared to charge forward along the debris toward Guan Yu's position, and then flickered out of existence in a spurt of DGS.  Lu Xun and Lu Meng sighed in unison and sat down impatiently.

At Wei HQ…

            "Cao Fodder, advance!"  Sima Yi ordered.

            "I'm _not_ Cao Fodder," the angry general replied.  "I'm Cao Ren!"

            "Whoever.  You're all the same to me, you Impersonators."

            Cao Ren shook his head slightly and prepared to navigate the debris.

On the eastern wall…

            "Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!" Xu Huang shouted as he charged through the Shu troops, who were splitting like malnourished strands of hair before the might of his battle-axe.

            "Victory will surely be ours!" Cao Fodder rejoiced as his bodyguards sniped anything that looked green.

            "Who's there?" Xu Huang called loudly as he noticed a Shu officer approaching through the mist.

            "It is I…Guan Ping!" the officer yelled  "Prepare to die! YAAAAAAAAAH!!"

            Guan Ping rushed forward madly.  Xu Huang swung at him and got into a deadlock.  Cao Fodder and his bodyguards stood patiently by as a green light glowed between the weapons.  After a short time, Guan Ping recoiled.

            "Unf!" Ping gasped.

            "Ha!" Xu Huang bellowed as he drew back his battle-axe.

            "Ung-ulgh-ug-ulgh-ulgh-ug-ung-OAAAG!!" Guan Ping cried spasmodically as a succession of eight arrows pierced him.  He staggered backward and fell down, dead, causing Xu Huang's swing to miss completely.

            Xu Huang glanced nervously at Cao Fodder.

            "What?" the officer asked meekly.

            "Nothing," Xu Huang answered quickly, averting his eyes.  "Nothing at all."

At Guan Yu's position…

            "What!?" Guan Yu cried out as he read the message.  "Guan Ping's force has been _obliterated_!?"

            The messenger who had delivered the note was shivering in fear.

            "I cannot believe this!" the Shu commander raged.  "Wei and Wu will both _pay_!"

On the southern wall…

            "Pick up the pace!" Cao Ren ordered.  "Keep the ranks moving!  We will hold ranks until we reach the debris.  We'll fragment into our units once we get there."

            Cao Ren's troops were approaching the area where the largest pieces of debris would allow them to cross to the other side of the castle.  As they marched, Cao Ren caught sight of the castle's buildings under the water.  They seemed mostly intact, surprisingly, and he could see other things intact about the flooded castle.  There was even a horse standing proudly at the bottom, kicking its hooves slightly.

            Cao Ren marched onward for a few moments.

            "A horse!?" Cao Ren suddenly shrieked, running over to the edge of the castle wall and looking down into the water.  Sure enough, there was a brown horse standing inexplicably underneath the water.  Cao Ren again felt very confused.

            "What is the matter, Lord Cao Ren?" one of his majors offered.

            Cao Ren turned to face him and looked quite bewildered.  "Look!  Look down there!"  Cao Ren's left hand pointed shakily in the general direction of the horse he had seen.

            The major stepped over beside Cao Ren and looked into the water.  He squinted a bit, then shook his head.

            "Do you see it?" Cao Ren questioned frantically.  "Do you see the impossibility that I see?"

            The major looked into the water thoughtfully for a moment, and then replied, "Yes…I never knew that there was a Zhou's Wienie Shack in Fan Castle!  Just look at all of those wienies floating around and going to waste!"

            Cao Ren shivered in rage.  "Not the wienies!" he stammered.  "The horse!  THE HORSE!"

            Cao Ren turned and looked into the water, pointing down toward…nothing.  The horse had disappeared.

            "What is it, Lord Cao Ren?" the major asked.

            Cao Ren blinked hard and looked again into the water.  The horse was definitely gone.

            "Nothing, nothing at all," Cao Ren said quickly, chuckling apprehensively.

            The Wei troops stood there in silence, watching Cao Ren.

            "Er, right, then," Cao Ren said, trying to recover his authoritative tone of voice.  "We'll break into our units now.  Everyone, divide up and prepare to cross the debris!"

            As the troops began to fan out, a guard ran up to Cao Ren.  "Lord Cao Ren!" he hailed.  "A group of Shu soldiers is approaching the castle from the south!"

            "Yes…go kill them," Cao Ren ordered weakly.

            The brunt of Sima Yi's force charged along the southern wall of the castle and prepared to attack the approaching Shu soldiers.  A massive spurt of DTS followed.

At the northeast corner of the wall of Fan Castle…

            Xu Huang and Cao Fodder, their troops supported by Wu's reinforcements, had managed to cut a swath through Guan Yu's advance.  Guan Yu himself now stood before the Wei officers.

            "Lord Xu Huang," Guan Yu began, his rage giving way to calmness.  "It's been a while…why do I have to fight you?"

            "My duty compels me to fight you…even if we are old friends," Xu Huang stated coldly.  "It is the way of the warrior!"

            The two raised their weapons, looked to their troops, and prepared to do battle.  Cao Fodder noticed that his bodyguards had already taken aim.

On the southern wall…

            "We're here!" Zhou Cang declared as he arrived with a pittance of Shu reinforcements.

            He and his troops looked around and walked forward a bit.  They saw no one.

            "That's strange," Zhou Cang stated.  "Where's the enemy?"

            They stepped forward a bit more.

            "Hey!  What's that?" Zhou Cang called, pointing off into the rainstorm.  Several shadowed figures had appeared and were approaching through the torrent.

            "It looks like…" a major said slowly before he had an arrow put through him.

            The Shu reinforcement party looked around nervously.  A rather large force of Wu and Wei troops was closing in, complete with archer backup.

            "Er, I don't think this is the right castle," Zhou Cang said innocently.  "In fact, I'm sure this isn't the right castle.  You nice solders just keep on doing whatever it was that you w—"

            "Attack!" a Wei guard captain ordered.

            Zhou Cang's forces made a panicked advance to the rear, running out the same way they came in.

            "That's the last time I take a job as 'reinforcements,'" Zhou Cang muttered as he fled.

On the eastern wall…

            Guan Yu staggered and collapsed, supporting himself with the haft of Blue Dragon.  Around him were the Wu officers, Xu Huang, Cao Fodder, a number of ill-aimed arrows, and a pool of his own blood.

            "In death…my soul shall _be_ my brethren.  Farewell!"  Guan Yu exclaimed before letting his glaive fall with a clank onto the stony wall.

            Everyone stood silent for just a moment thinking of his final words.

            "Did that make _any_ sense to the rest of you?" Xu Huang asked to the crowd.  The question was met with a widespread murmur of negative answers.

            "Well, we're done here," Lu Xun confided to Lu Meng and Gan Ning.  "Let's gather our troops, take Zhou Zhou, get out of here, and return Master Wolf to Sun Quan."

            "Sounds like a plan to me," Gan Ning agreed.

            "Yes, let's get out of here," Lu Meng said.

            "Victory is ours!" Xu Huang roared as the Wu troops moved out swiftly.

In the war room of Fan Castle, a few days later…

            "Yes, very good," Sima Yi told the messenger.  "The water is draining nicely.  I only hope that the castle isn't _too_ rotten after all of that flooding."

            "Oh, yes," the messenger said after remembering his other mission.  "I have a message for Cao Fodder as well."

            The young Wei officer reached over to accept the scroll being offered to him.  "Thank you," he acknowledged before unfurling it.

            There was a momentary silence at the table as Cao Fodder read the scroll silently.

            "Lord Cao Cao has requested my presence at Han Zhong to assist him with the defense.  The Shu army has begun to attack in force, and he wants me to be there.  He says it'll be good experience for me."

            "Well, he's not wrong there," Xu Huang agreed.  "You must go to him."

            "I plan on it," he confirmed. 

Cao Fodder's involvement at Han Zhong will be disclosed in the next chapter.

Once again, post reviews at will and wait for more chapters; we hope it was worth your time (and the wait, if you happened to read the He Fei chapter when it was first posted).  We do intend to continue this fic.


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